adminLONDON. — David Moyes must feel he is stuck in a loop of graduation ceremonies. First trip to Liverpool earlier this month, first Manchester derby this Sunday and Champions League Group stage debut here against a German club with fans who have clearly undergone the Bundesliga’s obligatory voice-projection training.
Bayer Leverkusen’s small knot of followers sent sonic booms of noise across a stadium that is still in the emotional adjustment phase.
But they were silenced by a resounding first-night victory for Moyes.
Bayer Leverkusen are not Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund but they are not easy to put four goals past.
This could be the performance that really sets Moyes on his way.
Wayne Rooney’s 200th goal for Manchester United eased his manager into the wonderland of Champions League football.
He faces a test more exotic than the quest to retain the domestic title in his first season in charge.
In the ITV interviews later there was a firm sense that the rapprochement between Rooney and United falls short of eternal love.
But one of Moyes’s most striking achievements so far has been to boil Rooney down to his correct fighting weight and restore his appetite for battle.
His partnership with Robin van Persie promises to be the most potent in this year’s Premier League.
As Roy Keane said: “If they get 60-70 goals between them then United are going to win trophies.”
Moyes added: “I said they’d be formidable.”
For how long is not a question that need detain him in these early days of endless ‘firsts’.
Remarkably this was United’s first European Cup fixture since 1969 without Sir Alex Ferguson in charge, allowing for the long hiatus of the Seventies and Eighties.
Their 18th consecutive Champions League campaign opened with the audience still not clear about how the world will look under the new leader.
It could be Christmas or beyond before Ferguson’s shadow lifts from his fellow Glaswegian.
He has impressed his successor with his ability to know what he wants and then demand it, without fear of diplomatic consequences.
A good example was Moyes’s forthright criticism of Ashley Young for diving against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Not content with admonishing his England winger.
Moyes then repeated his call for retrospective action against simulation.
The new manager is sometimes accused of name checking Ferguson too often — and expressing his respect too deferentially — but at the same time he has moved quickly to become the master of his own training ground.
He will not be entertaining too many more questions about how it feels to be doing this or that for the first time. — Telegraph.
Online Reporter