Coleman is 'excited' about his first game at the Stadium of Light and says that the prospect of reviving the side's fortunes at home was a big reason why he took the job. He said: "It’s been incredible. You’re never sure how you’re going to [be received], whether you’ll be accepted or not. You never know as a manager, I’ve been to some where I haven’t been accepted so well. "Here’s been absolutely amazing, that makes me determined to ensure that I don’t disappoint them. The reception has been overwhelming really, first class. We need to get a bit of stability through the place, get a foothold and build on that. "I didn’t look at Sunderland and think ‘bottom of the league’ and this and that, I thought, ‘Sunderland’. The stadium, the training facilities, the history. I’m here to be a part of that and that was a big part of the draw." Coleman visited the ground as home manager for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, and says that it is up to his players to win round the support and save their season. He said: "It is an amazing place, obviously I’ve been here before as a visitor. There’s an atmosphere in there without there even being any people in there, a proper football stadium. It’s a place where you look forward to plying your trade. "Even though we haven’t got the results there, you have to look forward to going to a place like that. I had a little look around for half an hour or so and yeah, it’s fantastic, I’m really excited about it. "Because it is such a big stadium and such a big fanbase you can be a little bit put off by it if you’re not playing well, but you’ve got to look at the positives. They’ll be on our side if we put in the performances and get the results. "That’s the challenge, to get them excited again. Even though we’re bottom of the league, there’s still 20,000 of them showing up. It just goes to show that the fanbase is incredible. It is up to us to excite, give them some hope. We can only do that with consistent performances and that starts again on Saturday. They’ll be there for us and we’ve got to make sure that we’re there for them."
He really does know what to say doesn’t he, even managing to cross reference the size of club and stadium with ‘by the way I know crowds are down’ and making it sound positive. This bloke might be the match we’ve been looking for, let’s ****ing hope so anyway.
I hope he is here for 5 years. We should get about 30 - 35,000 on Saturday now, we are in a false position with the players we have got, a bit of tweaking in January will see us all right !
Wouldn’t surprise you, he’s got that excited kid look about him which is exactly what we need. Like he’s honoured to be here and given he could have likely gone PL or Europe how ****ing good is that to see? I hope he’s the one like, I reckon the crowd will be up a few thousand for Saturday just on the back of how infectious he’s coming across.
