Manchester United's 'experiment' with Wilf McGuinness could come back to haunt David Moyes Hindsight suggests that had McGuinness been really clever, he would have analysed the way he heard of his appointment and suggested to the mate that he put a double on him being sacked within 18 months. Without bothering to ask if he wanted the job, Busby had decided it would be him. Even the night before his elevation his view or opinion was not sought; the then 31-year-old management rookie was simply told to turn up to work the next day wearing a tie, like he was a schoolboy summoned to see the headmaster. In a sense he was. Busby was nearly 12 years younger than Ferguson when he retired. At 60 he still had the energy to wield influence at United. At the time what he proposed seemed like a plan: he would take care of things like liaising with the board, talking to the press and transfer business, giving McGuinness time to learn the trade. In practice it was less a plan than a recipe for distress. McGuinness was soon failing to corral a dressing room made up of players of his own age and far greater accomplishment. In an attempt to impose himself he floundered. He introduced blackboard and tactical lectures to those brought up on Busby's simple instruction to just go out and play. He embarrassed Bobby Charlton, he ostracised Jimmy Murphy, Busby's stalwart assistant, Willie Morgan squared up to him when he threw a hand of cards in the player's face after losing to him at poker. Which in turn infuriated the senior players: what was the manager doing playing cards at the back of the team bus? No one can legitimately suggest that Moyes, a man of huge experience and stature, has lost the dressing room in the way McGuinness so effortlessly managed from the start. Nor is Moyes facing the kind of obstruction McGuinness did on transfers. Wilf wanted Malcolm Macdonald, Colin Todd and Mick Mills. Busby, who was in charge of recruitment, bought him instead Ian Ure. Mind, it could be argued it might help Moyes's cause were he able to blame Ferguson for buying Marouane Fellaini. Despite his immediately obvious inadequacies McGuinness was gifted nearly 18 months as manager. In his one full season, he steered United to eighth in the league (Moyes knows all about that position) and to a FA Cup semi-final. The replay against Leeds marked the beginning of the end of his time. McGuinness booked the team into a hotel, the idea that players could rest up ahead of their evening effort. George Best's idea of rest was idiosyncratic. He met a woman at the bar and, after drinking heavily with her, went back to spend the afternoon in her room. A furious McGuinness found out and stormed in to catch them in flagrante. The trouble was he did not then know what to do next. So he went to see Busby. Busby said he would sort it. He did nothing, Best played and, his legs somewhat drained, missed United's only chance. Subsequently everyone blamed McGuinness. The players blamed him for not disciplining Best when he was in obvious breach of the rules. The press blamed him because Best looked so sluggish. Best blamed him for not being Busby and announced his own retreat from the game at the end of that season. The incident was McGuinness's tenure in microcosm. Unlike Moyes, he had responsibility without power. Six months later, a loss in the League Cup to Aston Villa, then in the third division, sealed his fate. Busby returned to take control of the team. Best, too, returned, scoring 14 goals in the second half of the season to paper over the cracks through which McGuinness had fallen. Meanwhile Wilf was offered - and took - his old job back. He lasted but two weeks before realising his pride had been trampled on. So traumatised was he by his experience, his hair fell out overnight. As Eamon Dunphy put it so astutely: "the torch had been passed on. Wilf grabbed the lighted end. Yet, despite the huge differences between the two men, for Moyes there is a lesson in McGuinness's history: only sustained victory will protect him from comparison with his predecessor. After Sunday it will be a lesson of which he is only too aware.