"The club has parted company with manager Martin O'Neill. Sunderland AFC has announced that it has parted company with manager Martin OâNeill this evening. The club would like to place on record its thanks to Martin and wishes him well for the future. An announcement will be made in the coming days regarding a successor." Do they have someone lined up already?
Yeesh. They have been dire, but yeesh. If they don't have someone lined up to install within the next 2-3 days, they deserve to go down.
Why wait these two international weeks? You know you've got Man Utd coming up. By sacking him after this game, the board are basically saying he should have got something from the game today. Irrelevant that us and Wigan won, MON could do nothing about that. It's deserved yes, but I did not see it coming. Not the timing of it.
Yeah, I really wonder about the timing of some of these moves...it almost suggests that the Wigan win (leaving them one point above the drop zone) was more instrumental than his team's performance, which is a stupid means by which to adjudicate such decisions. They could have fired him before the break if so desirous, and had some time to prepare; instead, the new man will have Chelsea away in less than a week and the flipping derby thereafter as his first two games out.
The Sunderland v Man Utd game has supposedly been moved from 7th to 1st in the running order on MOTD because of this. Weird.
Bye Bye Sunderland. I said at the start of the season they'd go down, and I haven't seen anything to convince me otherwise. This is the nail in the coffin, along with losing Fletcher for the season.
I can understand it. This is now THE talking point of the day. And they can hardly discus it before showing the match. I doubt any additional highlights of the match will be shown though, just what they were always planning to show for a game that was down at 7 on the running order.
Absolutely didn't see that one coming. Like Mcdermott at Reading, a) terrible time of the season to make a change and b) weak squad for this level, little strength in depth. With this in mind, it would take a very competent manager to do a better job. Good luck to Sunderland in finding one.
After watching that game live, I cannot wait to see extended highlights of the time that Man U passed the ball around midfield, looking disinterested, or an in-depth dissection of the time that Sunderland looked like they might counter but forgot the ball, or the many thrilling throw-ins.
This sacking makes sense to me. They've been plunging down the table and clearly O'Neill doesn't have a solution. If they have someone lined up already, then maybe that person will be able to inspire the squad and help them turn it around. They have strikers there who aren't scoring goals, such as Wickham and Graham, and maybe they'll appoint someone who can get more out of them. They were going down under O'Neill, so I can't really see the harm in giving this a shot.
The timing is strange, after an international break and after a Man Utd game which they were going to lose anyway and with 7 games left But considering the money they spend, they should be doing better
I can understand the McDermott one more though. They had one game (Man Utd) in the next three weeks. They had time to find a replacement, without it impacting their league fixtures. Unless Sunderland have been speaking to someone during the international break though, and only in the last couple of days have things been finalised, then why on earth wait until now to do, after the international break. Like I say, he deserves the sack, and it may well turn out to be THE decision which saves them from relegation. I just cannot understand the timing,.
