My sense is Maguire hated being told some home truths. He seemed to think he was some kind of hero at Sunderland. The whole The King thing was horrendous. The reality is he was absolutely useless 70% of the time and played with his pet lip out. Johnson hopefully called him out. The fact he played like he did a couple of weeks ago shows just how much he short changed us under successive managers when he was here. If a player like Pritchard or Flannagan or McGeady or Wright came out and slammed Johnson I would take note. If Maguire does it I have to just laugh at the daft sod. No offence to those saying most of the players hate Johnson but it sounds very far fetched to me. Some may, but most? i really doubt it. Half of our squad are first season pros, hardly going to have enough experience to hate him. Those on loan will be reporting in regularly to parent clubs and any relationship issues will be discussed and word would get round and clubs would be wary to loan to us. Batth wont have signed if he thought he was joining a team that hated the manager, and he would have done his homework. Tottenham arent sending a young lad to develop in that sort of environment. If Hoffman and Dujaku and Doyle hated him they could have asked their clubs to terminate loans in Jan and send them elsewhere. If Onien and McGeady hated him they wouldnt have re-signed with us. As I say, with respect, it sounds far fetched.
Would anyone take Grant McCann? Harshly booted our by Hull last week. No idea what his style of play is, but he has form for performing in this league
"Sunderland AFC would like to welcome Jermain Defoe back to the club in his new role as Player/Manager"
I think they nearly did. I said they used to work there …… Never nice to see a manager go but if we want top two we needed a man who has a better plan. My views on Johnson- decent at coaching nice football just not good at selecting a winning side and system - ironically the tactical iq he blags on about is what i don’t think he has