TO an outsider looking in, Real Sociedad’s poor series of results – two wins out of eleven to begin the season – is the reason David Moyes is no longer employed by the San Sebastián club. To anyone who has been following the Spanish and Basque press, there is far more to it than the low points haul.

That the local newspaper, El Diario Vasco, ran an article on Tuesday with the headline “The Five Sins Of David Moyes” tells a story. That only one of the five sins concerned the action on the pitch says even more.

Ultimately, David Moyes simply never fitted in. The Scot was always an outsider in his own little bubble, with his every move analysed in intense detail in the pages of the Spanish sports papers - newspapers which read more like the gossip column of a glossy magazine than the pages of sporting insight they are billed as. Moyes was like a contestant on Big Brother; he was under constant surveillance without the opportunity to join the debate.

That inability to participate in the debate or to even understand what was being said about him, whether behind his back or shouted from the front pages, largely stemmed from his non-existent skills in Spanish. While Moyes began this new adventure by attending Spanish lessons, he ultimately stopped trying.

With it obvious that Moyes was advancing too slowly to make persisting with the language lessons worth his time, ending the lessons made practical sense. However, the image it gave off was one of a man who had given up on embedding himself fully in the culture. He still went for a walk around the city every night and, as one bar owner told me, he stopped by to try the popular Basque snack of pinchos once a week, but he always looked out of place and, of course, always had to order in English. Giving up on learning the language was always going to be difficult to recover from in this proud city.

Then there was the moment earlier this season when he threw one of his own players under the bus. Following a defeat to Espanyol in September, Moyes pinned the blame for the 3-2 defeat on his goalkeeper Oier Olazábal, telling the media that, “Oier should have saved the third goal.”

The deflecting of responsibility did him no good in the eyes of the press, who were not easily fooled, nor in the eyes of the players, many of whom reportedly considered Moyes “a diva” given that he was still staying in the city’s poshest hotel on Real Sociedad’s credit card one year after his arrival. The expense hardly mattered to a club which featured in the

Champions League just two seasons ago, but the impression it gave off did Moyes no favours.

Finally, Moyes’ attitude was perceived as defeatist. Real Sociedad is a club which has just tasted the Champions League experience and which was, at least, in the Europa League last year. Any incoming manager had to understand that the fans’ expectations have been set high after recent successes, so it was particularly strange that Moyes was the one telling the media that his Real Sociedad team was not good enough to qualify for Europe. He may have been right, given that his squad was not as strong as some perceived, but bursting the balloon of hope was unnecessary.

The Real Sociedad team which qualified for the 2013/14 Champions League did so with an attacking and exciting football. It is always easier to win favour with supporters when results aren’t going your way if you are still scoring goals, yet Moyes’ Real Sociedad team built from the back and played a cautious style of football. Unlike John Toshack, another British manager who managed Real Sociedad, Moyes failed to alter his style to suit the Spanish game.

That defensive style may have achieved some important goalless draws, but Spanish football fans would far rather draw 4-4 than 0-0, a scoreline picked up by Moyes’ team on three occasions already this season. It was not necessarily the lack of victories that angered the fans, but the lack of entertainment.

Real Sociedad is not a sacking club. No manager had been dismissed in the middle of a season between 2008 and the dismissal of Moyes’ predecessor Jagoba Arrasate last November. The president Jokin Aperribay, who had hand-picked Moyes, was keen to resolve the issues rather than dismiss the former Everton and Manchester United boss - partly because his sacking would cost £3.2 million. That even Moyes’ ally ultimately admitted sacking him was unavoidable is particularly condemning.

The ‘Moyesometer’ had been slowing inching its way from hot to cold ever since his arrival. Eventually it had swung too far to ignore.