https://www.sunderlandecho.com/spor...d-whether-players-should-take-pay-cut-2540552 Echo poll of 1687... Thousands of fans had urged the Chairman to sell up as Sunderland dropped to its lowest-ever position earlier this season, after prominent fan groups launched an online protest at the club’s performance both on and off the pitch. The sale process remains ongoing with hopes a deal could be struck by the summer, though Donald has since admitted he would like to keep a stake in the club either way. Of the fans that responded to our survey, 55.8% said they did not want Donald to sell the club with 44.2% in favour of him moving on after almost two years at the helm. Donald is assessing his next steps as he weighs up the interest that has been registered. He said in a recent interview that the interested parties were ‘pausing for breath’ in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has seen all football suspended for the foreseeable future.
1500 iirc Joking aside, if the mood has swung, or never really went away, its time to get behind Donald, i.e. no picking and chipping away at everything he says.
I don’t mind Donald. He speaks from the heart. He’s not the reason we’re “still in league one” every other club said we had the best squad last and this season. So why is it Donald’s fault that we aren’t getting promoted? Surely managers, coaches and players are to blame for that. Or should he have offered 15k a week to get better players and potentially bankrupted the club?
Well 55% must be happy with poor league one football and mediocrity, I'm not I want what's best for Sunderland.
Same mate I thought give him one more chance maybe may sign and change his style but unfortunately that never happened.
But he provided us with the best squad of players in the division. Is that bad ownership? He did his job right last season. Manager and players didn’t.
I'd say his mistakes were Ross after playoffs, the maja situation although he did buy Grigg and we were all happy with that. He has been unlucky not a terrible owner but far from a good one unfortunately.
Just goes to show how ridiculous the "fans statement" was doesn't it. I'm sure that some will say that RAWA has 14000 members but they weren.t friggin consulted before the statement was released. Haway the fans groups
It's never just as easy as him being good or **** is it? I have a lot of time for Donald the person (from everything I've seen and heard). I'd happily have a pint with him, he seems like a thoroughly decent bloke and clearly has a lot of passion for the project - The STID episode when he is a fan in the away end v Portsmouth is a show highlight in my opinion. The question is really on what he should carry the can for and most would ultimately say that he employs managers, coaches and players so should therefore be responsible for their actions. I don't think it's that simple. I have several concerns with the football club and I think they are all the responsibility of Richard Hill (and partly the managers). I'll highlight them below. In my view, Donald has given a key role to someone who performed well for him previously (no problem with that). But he's backing him and believes he's doing a good job which I completely disagree with. So if Donald and Hill are a package, then I feel Donald has to go because the long term position of our club on the pitch is compromised. If Donald is self aware enough to realise his errors and can make tough decisions, then I don't have a problem with him staying. My main concerns are as follows: 1) Our academy is not the central focus of our plan for the future which it should be. We're buying too many journeymen and not giving youngsters a path to the first team which has the knock on effects of youngsters in earlier age groups more likely to leave and the club missing our on vital future revenue that will ultimately propel it forwards. 2) Signings have been bad (ignoring loans for this). The exceptions are Luke O'Nien, Chris Maguire, Jordan Willis and Jon Mclaughlin. Dobson is debateable. That leaves 14 permanent (bad) signings. That's not a good ratio in my opinion. I think the signings have been opportunistic rather than a coherent strategy. 3) Scouting. The appearance is that this was Tony Coton and Richard Hill running around alone finding out off agents, who was available. This has caused a problem leading us to make many short term signings. Funding for scouting was cut back as "non-essential spending" which in my view was a huge error. 4) A plan for the footballing side of the project is lacking in my view. It seems to be to just get promoted somehow and then re-evaluate. I feel that we need a plan that focuses around our academy and buying young/cheap and selling after developing them for a profit. I think that plan should have started from day one, though I concede on this point that they might have a plan for the Championship which I'm not aware of.
Ultimately it will always fall on the owner as it’s his job to select a manager that would win us promotion. In that respect he’s failed. I also appreciate that without SD’s extreme cost cutting and him doing brilliantly to shift the big wage players, our club would more than likely be in a very bleak position, now.
I’ll give it a go Buying a club he couldn’t afford. Parachute payments aren’t free money they are given for a reason. Hiring Scottish Championship manager Jack Ross to do a job in a league he had absolutely no experience in. Not realising the bloke was completely full of it. Mishandling the Maja situation. Replacing him by blowing £3m on a Wigan reserve who was and is absolutely terrible. Gradual weakening of the team. In June we could lose nearly all our decent players when their short term contracts run out. Where is the money to replace players or renew contracts? The many half-truths about loans, parachute payments, being the richest team in L1 then having no money, FPP deal going tits up I could go on...
For me Donald is the quintessential chancer. He had an opportunity to own a club that has everything in place, the previous owner pretty much left debt free and I would imagine he and Methven ran the numbers and looked at what they would get if the club were to be promoted. It also appears that he even managed to bring in interested party to potentially buy the club IF we did get promoted. His plans went tits up in the 4th minute of injury time at Wembley. He now is in a very difficult position, made even more difficult by this virus crisis. Donald was NEVER in a position to fund SAFC, he simply does not have that kind of wealth. He banked/gambled on us going up...well we didn't, He should cut his losses quick and sell to someone who can fund a club the size of Sunderland. Time to Go Stuart.
The chance of a team playing fast attacking football that was promised two years ago, looks farther away than ever, and the chances of a take-over that would fulfill our wildest dreams looks even further down the road. ( or should that be up the road ). My concern is that short termism is endemic and will hinder any chance we have of going anywhere soon, their is a glimmer of hope and it is still posible that promotion could be achieved, but with the squad available, but it wont be wil . away I agree, short termism is the scurge of this country, and this club, constant turnover is expensive and not the answer, the club lurches from one disatster to another, Rodwell to Grigg, is a good analogy, although their are many more. All people do is call for heads to roll, but until we have stability with a plan (hopefully based on the "fast attacking football" that we were promised two years ago with the arrival of JR ") we are in for a long winter, praying for miracles or a Messiah, and neither looks imminent to me, the academy is our best hope long term and change is certainly needed there before the damage becomes irrepairable..
