David Moyes has been sacked by Manchester United after just 10 months in charge and replaced by Ryan Giggs.

The club have confirmed that Giggs will assume responsibility for first-team affairs until a permanent manager is appointed.

Giggs, 40, has been combining playing with studying for his Pro-Licence, learning at the feet of the manager for the majority of his career at United, Alex Fergsuon.

The Welsh winger and Moyes are believed not to have seen eye to eye over the past season although the club was at pains to deny the rumour.

United released a short statement at 8.30am on Tuesday morning saying: “Manchester United has announced that David Moyes has left the club.

Moyes was informed of the news late on Monday evening and drove into the club’s Carrington training complex on Tuesday morning to make his departure official.

Moyes’s backroom staff of Steve Round, Phil Neville, Jimmy Lumsden and Chris Woods are also likely to depart.

“The club would like to place on record its thanks for the hard work, honesty and integrity he brought to the role.”

The move came after the former Everton manager lost the support of United’s owners, the Glazer family despite having been personally selected by Ferguson and been handed a six-year contract.

United had insisted that Moyes was still their manager on Monday, but refused to deny widespread reports the Scot was to be dismissed.

The former captain Gary Neville, who made over 600 appearances for United, had called on the club to clear up the situation.

“I have to say I find it repulsive the way these rumours break,” Neville, who won 17 major trophies at Old Trafford, told Sky Sports. “I don’t like it, I’ll never get used to it, even though this is the world we live in. It needs to be clarified pretty quickly by the club and they need to break rank and do what they don’t usually do, which is make a statement pretty quickly.

“The weight and explosion of the information coming out concerns me. That club, for 20-odd years, contained and managed information. It was completely off the scale like nothing else that’s happened at the club in 20 years.”

Managers are already being linked with the job, foremost among them the Holland manager Louis van Gaal and the former United centre-half and Paris St-Germain coach Laurent Blanc.

The list of unwanted records broken during Moyes’ time at the helm is as embarrassing as it is long. United will end the season with their lowest points total in Premier League history, they have not qualified for the Champions League for the first time in almost two decades and their home record this season is the worst since 1978.

The Red Devils, who won the title by 11 points under Alex Ferguson last year, are seventh in the Premier League with four matches left. Guardian Service