THE first home game of the season is supposed to be a time of unbridled optimism. Dreams remain intact, hope springs eternal. Unless you are David Moyes.

Having watched his Sunderland side suffer a 2-1 defeat to Middlesbrough last August, Moyes was asked to respond to supporters’ concerns about yet another relegation fight. “Well, they would probably be right because that’s where they’ve been every other year for the last four years, so why would it suddenly change,” he said, with his dour demeanour adding to the sense of despair. “I think it will be, I don’t think you can hide the facts. That will be the case.”

Moyes has subsequently claimed he was merely being realistic, not wanting to promise something he was incapable of delivering. Be that as it may, the tone of his Sunderland tenure had been set. Relegation was inevitable, defeat a default setting. From that point onwards, he was effectively a dead man walking towards the demise that was confirmed yesterday afternoon.

It is easy to forget now, amidst the terrace turmoil and sustained abuse from the stands, but Moyes’ appointment was broadly welcomed when he arrived to bail out Sunderland following Sam Allardyce’s departure to take over the England team. Yes, his stock had fallen somewhat following unsuccessful spells at Manchester United and Real Sociedad, but Sunderland fans remembered his patient building work at Everton, when financial restraints had not been a barrier to success.

Moyes’ earliest utterances ticked the right boxes, as he spoke about adding a youthful dose of energy to an ageing squad, but pre-season was chaotic and alarm bells began to ring when the first raft of signings came through the entrance door.

Time was tight thanks to Allardyce’s departure, and the budget was always going to be limited with Ellis Short looking to sell the club, but it quickly became clear that Moyes was going to rely on players he had worked with in the past. It was a trait that would ultimately ensure Sunderland were saddled with a squad of ‘has-beens’ and ‘never-quite-weres’.

Donald Love and Paddy McNair came in a cut-price double deal from Manchester United, while Steven Pienaar was a free agent who had worked with Moyes at Everton. When there was decent money to spend, it was squandered - £8m on Chelsea reserve Papy Djilobodji, and a club-record £13m on Didier Ndong. Ndong is a decent enough player, but central midfield was arguably the one area of the pitch where Sunderland were reasonably well covered.

The same couldn’t be said in attack, but Moyes failed to land the striker he desperately needed, and was forced to scramble around for free agent Victor Anichebe when the transfer window closed. One month into the season, and it was already the desperate act of a manager who knew he was in trouble.

On the field, results were disastrous from the outset. Sunderland didn’t win a league game until early November, by which time they were already firmly rooted to the foot of the table. They would remain in the bottom three for the remainder of the campaign.

In truth, that wasn’t an unusual situation for a Sunderland manager to find themselves in, but whereas his predecessors had been able to gradually instil confidence and spirit, characteristics that inspired a series of remarkable escapes, Moyes was a constant source of negativity.

The players were trying their best, but lacked quality. Money was tight, and that was always going to count against him. Injuries were a constant problem, preventing things from turning themselves around. Sunderland needed a root-and-branch reform, and things might have to get worse before they improved.

There was an element of truth to all his gripes, but they sounded like the pleadings of a man desperate to shift the blame. It also didn’t help that Moyes was constantly harping back to his ‘win record’ while at Everton. As the fans were right to point out, what did it matter what was happening five years ago when Sunderland were crashing to a 4-0 home defeat to Southampton?

That day, in February, witnessed some of the first signs of widespread dissent against Moyes, and from that point onwards, he was unable to win the fans back around.

January didn’t help, with the decision, taken jointly with Martin Bain, to dampen expectation by publicly admitting the coffers were empty backfiring spectacularly. The supporters didn’t feel sorry for Moyes, their dislike of him intensified, and the sight of Joleon Lescott trundling through the entrance door provoked fury rather than pity.

Sunderland’s form nosedived, and while February’s shock 4-0 win at Crystal Palace provoked a brief bout of optimism, it proved the falsest of dawns. After winning at Selhurst Park, Sunderland failed to score in their next seven games. By the time they next found the net against West Ham, their fate was already sealed.

Moyes’ one-dimensional tactics were a major factor in his side’s spring slump, along with his refusal to turn to the players he had ostracised at an early stage of his reign.

With goals at a premium, why was Wahbi Khazri barely able to make the substitutes’ bench? Why was Fabio Borini overlooked, with Jermain Defoe repeatedly isolated in a lone striker role? And why were promising youngsters such as George Honeyman and Lynden Gooch not given a chance while the likes of Pienaar and Darron Gibson plugged away producing nothing?

Moyes proved to be as stubborn as he was sombre, sucking the life out of his players while proving incapable of repairing the fractures that were becoming increasingly apparent. When Borini recently admitted Sunderland’s players were “not as united” as they had been in the past, it spoke volumes for Moyes’ chronic man-management.

It wasn’t just his players he was offending of course, with one of the defining moments of his reign coming in the Stadium of Light’s interview room in March. Frustrated at Vicki Sparks’ line of questioning, Moyes threatened to slap the female reporter. He claims it was an off-the-cuff remark made in jest; it felt much more malevolent. Either way, it was the act of a man struggling to cope.

Sunderland’s fate was sealed when they lost to Bournemouth at the end of last month, but rather than admitting defeat himself as his side slid into the Championship, Moyes soldiered on to the end of the campaign.

His final home game was a 2-0 defeat to Swansea, and his final act as Sunderland boss was to oversee Sunday’s 5-1 thrashing at Chelsea.

That should have been an unremarkable defeat, but Moyes’ ability to infuriate his own supporters remained intact to the last. In the wake of his side’s defeat at Stamford Bridge, Moyes admitted he had instructed his players to kick the ball out of play in the 26th minute to ensure John Terry was able to receive a stage-managed send-off on his final appearance as a Chelsea player.

More than happy to facilitate Terry’s big day, Moyes was unwilling to even acknowledge the travelling Sunderland supporters at the final whistle. As had been the case at Arsenal five days earlier, he headed straight for the tunnel at the end of the game, leaving his players to face the wrath of the fans.

It was a final act of cowardice at the end of a thoroughly miserable ten-month reign. Moyes might have inherited a mess when he took over at the Stadium of Light, but he bequeaths an even bigger one as he heads through the exit door.