David Moyes is not Manchester United's Midas: everything he touches is turning to straw I am happy at Barcelona. My dream is to play and triumph here and I have never considered leaving," the player told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur where the Catalans are on tour. Which, while accepting that the truth is the first casualty of the transfer window, sounds pretty unequivocal. No wonder, with the soap opera plotting of Wayne Rooney's future filling the back pages, Moyes admitted he was finding the scale of his new job taxing. "The transition from Everton to Manchester United has been difficult at times as I have had hard decisions to make," he said. I can't deny Manchester United are on another level. Let's be honest, it would be a step up from just about any other club in the world. The level of interest from the fans and press is phenomenal. And in truth Moyes has not been assisted by the fact he is not the only new arrival in the United hierarchy. A manager without experience in the top end of the football market, he needed all the help he could get to negotiate his first few weeks in charge. Instead, whereas Ferguson could rely on advice and practical support from David Gill, a man with a decade's worth of experience running a club of United's scale, Moyes can only turn to the new chief executive Edward Woodward. A man with considerable prowess in marketing, Woodward is, however, someone who has never before engaged in the arcane processes of the football transfer market, a business requiring the bluffing skills of the poker player combined with the forked tongue of the serial conman. While he did not always get his man (the fat Ronaldo was just one of the players he failed to secure), at least Gill could pick up the phone to any agent or football club chief executive in the world and immediately start discussions. This summer Woodward was obliged to begin every conversation with an introduction. He has admitted to his colleague he is starting from scratch. In a sense the pursuit of Fabregas was one which demonstrated how steep is the pair's learning curve. Those with more experience would have realised before they began it was a non-starter. Sure, on paper, the former Arsenal captain looked an ideal piece of recruitment, providing precisely the kind of drive and purpose from the centre of midfield the current United squad lacks. But the truth was, whatever the financial and trophy-gathering possibilities on offer, he was never likely to come to Old Trafford. His sole ambition throughout his career has been to play for his hometown club and, while he may not currently be Barcelona's first choice, he is now at the head of the queue to replace the ageing Xavi and Iniesta. He was never going to abandon his dream just as it was about to be fulfilled. Without the marquee signing that would have issued such a signal of intent, Moyes has been obliged instead to fall back on the world he knows best: Everton. A two-for-one raid on Goodison has been launched, hoping to bring Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini to Manchester. But even here, the purchase of players with whom he has such a sound working relationship is not proving straight forward. His replacement on Merseyside is a stubborn negotiator. Roberto Martinez has publicly insisted neither player will leave. And already the satirists of Twitter wonder if Woodward has the wherewithal to fulfil Moyes's intentions. The humorist behind a fake Ed Woodward account beautifully subverted the chief executive's powers of persuasion with this tweet yesterday: "@fellainiM text me back, mate. Please. So it is that Moyes comes to the end of his competitive break with his squad so stretched he required the services of Bebe - a player assumed long ago to be considered surplus to requirements - to bolster his midfield in Sweden, with his most elevated talent determined to leave and with absolutely no sign of any plausible new recruits on the horizon. A gifted, determined and immensely level-headed manager he may be, but Moyes could barely have been dealt a less convincing opening hand. He is right: from here things can only get better.