Sunderland are big enough to challenge for the Europa league each and every season under the guidance of a manager with a proven CV. Agree or disagree?
agree, but we need to build up to it. We have all seen how europe has affected Stoke (and previously fulham). When/if we do qualify for europe, i dont want the same happening to us.
agree the support we have, the stadium, the academy and a billionaire owner is all there to put it into place shame about the manager we currently have.......
Well seeing as we have never done this since the formation of the Europa league, I would say this should be our aspiration rather than our divine right..
Totally agree with this. I think we are big enough to be in it year after year but in my lifetime of following the club we haven't achieved 1 season in Europe. It's very much an aspiration rather than a given but its absolutely an aspiration well within our reach, if we had the right manager in charge. Bruce will never be that manager imo.
Can you please explain how you conclude that me saying qualifying for the Europa league should be an aspiration of ours is negative?
I'm not so sure this is going to come quickly no matter who the manager is. We need a bigger squad for that (witness Stoke and Fulham) and we can't attract the really top players and keep them because of our wage cap. We need the foreign marketing right before we get too immersed in this sort of thing. Once we can pay good competitive wages and have a competent manager, then yes, I think we can. Right now, no.
Speaking as a fan of a certain neighbourhood side I would disagree. Only because I think that you've got the manager and the board to do this. Though the premise of each and every year is hard - for any team, not just Sunderland. Liverpool are, arguably, bigger than either of our two clubs and yet they may not make fifth slot. The same could be said for Arsenal. There are five spots up for Europe and now with the emergence of Manchester City and the strength of Spurs the top four could well have six names - and for five slots. So, at least one of those is going to be excluded and then there's teams like yours and mine which also want a slice of the action. Anyway, as far as Sunderland goes- the problem, if any, is not the manager. It's some of the idiot players and their attitudes which are holding your club back. I don't take any pleasure out of this Bramble fiasco and this goes to illustrate the problem that some players are causing. Get rid of the egoistical fools, which could take years as we've found, and you may find that you won't need to change manager. I hope you don't as I have always thought well of Bruce. Best of luck for the season.
It depends what "big enough" means. If it means that you have enough cash to buy enough quality to challenge for the Europa League, then so far, yes. Newcastle have shown that you can get some real bargains on the market (Tiote, Cabaye and so on), so if you combine that with a fairly hefty budget, you're going to get somewhere. However, no matter what Sunderland do in their current state, the opportunity to grab a Europa League spot could be partially out of their hands. There are many other teams also spending cash, and many teams who also have higher wage caps and/or a stronger appeal in the transfer market. So whilst the budget seems adequate on paper, in real life with other factors, it becomes considerably more difficult. I don't think a manager with a proven CV would be good enough to do that at the moment. There would also have to be better scouts and time spent improving the reputation of the club to attract better players, which would require consistently better results. With Newcastle, we're lucky to be able to fall back on past history in the Champions League and so on, where the footballers of today can remember watching us face Inter Milan and Barcelona when they were children. That stamp on the European stage is something Sunderland has never had, so becoming an attractive force throughout Europe takes a different approach, and one which perhaps requires some patience.
This is exactly what I had hoped for, fans refusing to directly answer the question, or disagree. So onto the next question. If you were the owner of a football club that has an aspiration to achieve the Europa league, would you choose to appoint a manager with a proven CV or an unproven CV in order to attain that aspiration? No grey area's here... Appoint a proven CV or an unproven CV? It would be nice to have a direct answer to this question.
Proven of course. But unfortunaltly SB has the reigns at the moment, and it seems like ES will give him every opportunity to sink or swim.
My question isn't targetted with reference to Sunderland or Bruce. It's the same question that all owners of any club who have a fanbase and stadium, that if given the right incentives to fill that stadium, would ask themselves. However, now that you have mentioned Bruce and Sunderland is it therefore a logical conclusion to suggest that Bruce, without anything that even remotely resembles a proven CV, is the type of candidate that an owner with the aspiration to achieve a Europa league position would appoint or allow to continue to manage a club indefinately?
Aye blame me. I'm a BoB, but it took some time to convert me. How-ever i do tend to steer clear of this debate, as it goes round in circles. Plus i don't have a clue on a suitable replacement, so i'm abstaining,
My questions here are formed with the intention to determine a collective basis for agreement upon the type of decisions and appointments that will increase the probability of success for Sunderland, which is afterall what we would all like to see, allegedly. My question answers itself... and it also highlights something that at this point in time Sunderland don't have. Therefore the primary conclusion to be drawn from this understanding is that we as a club are effectively failing to maximise our potential, unless the current manager, Bruce, achieves a feat that which he hasn't ever proven himself capable of before. How long must we wait for Bruce to achieve something he hasn't ever proven himself capable of before we appoint a manager with a track record of success, any success... A win or two in a domestic cup competition, a finish in a Europa league position... there are a few of them out there and some of which are looking for a job... Personally, I don't think that what is occuring at Sunderland at this point in time is the best way to maximise the potential of Sunderland and I can also see why some fans would rather sit in the pub as opposed to visit the stadium at this point in time when they can also see what I can see. Fans that are lacking motivation to buy season tickets are lacking inspiration because they are turned away by the thought of watching yet another 10 game winless run, another seasonal rebuild, mysterious reasons for why top class players arrive and leave within 12-24 months, playing 4-6-0 formations, being knocked out of cups by lower league opposition every season, failing to play strikers for 25% of the season, advising the fans to lower their expectations, having a manager that has walked out of clubs, sacked from clubs, relegating a club and the list could continue and there isn't anything that I have just written that is biased, it is all historical fact. Is it remotely possible that these are the reasons why we see 35,000 as opposed to 45,000 fans at the SOL? If a chairman acknowledges that the fans are very important to the success of a football club and those fans begin to dwindle in numbers then those fans will begin to influence the chairmans thoughts because any chairman who makes the choice to ignore the very reason for why a football club is created, which is for our entertainment, would be out of touch with what its all about. Ellis Short isn't a man that strikes myself as being out of touch with reality.
