New Head Coach

Not a chance. The current squad is poor and there’s zero trust in recruitment.

 

Staying the same in the last 3.5 years has moved us from a team missing out on the League One playoffs (Phil Parkinson) to the Championship playoffs the season before last, we've basically had it good, we hit a bump in the road last season and you want to throw it all away to roll the dice again, nuts man.

 

I don't think we'll get relegated but I also don't think we'll be anywhere close to promotion so what's the point?

He should've been gone in May. Too late to sack him now unless Harvey or someone else within the club can step up to a decision making role.

 

Been away from this and RTG last few days... but jesus christ what is going on... this is an absolute shambles

 

Some of our fans are spoiled like, a crappy season after 2 seasons of real progress and we're willing to burn it all down and go back to dice rolling.

 

…has been for a while. It’s mental we’re still without a manager but some still believe all is well.

 

https://x.com/sunderlandafc11/status/1800923389164695624

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I just think speakmans run his course, nout personal but if we can upgrade in any department we should, especially if we claim to be ‘obsessed with progression’

 

like the masked singer this

 

The people kicking off the most are just so inconsistent and contradictory.

They're believing that we had Maric agreed then pulled out because Still came available and then had him agreed until Lens (a Champions League club this season no less) showed an interest, then had Jansen and Rosenior fairly far down the line (do they keep all the bad stuff secret until the very last minute?). At the same time they're also saying no one will take the job because of the restrictions being imposed, the owner selling, Speakman, lack of investment, seven man selection panel (which no one mentioned or saw as a problem until Nixon said it). I don't know how they reconcile the two.

 

Haway man this is shocking journalism. So whoever wrote this knows that we have other candidates (obviously) but doesn't know who they are? Admitting you don't have good sources is an interesting route to take.

 

The decisions of the ownership group are burning it down.

Pieing off Mowbray and appointing Beale.
Sacking Beale realising it was a disaster.
Appointing Dodds as interim.
Taking 120 days or whatever ridiculous number we're up to, to find a replacement.

Its concerning, it doesnt seem to be organised. It doesnt seem to be progressive at all, we went backwards last season and this current ****uation is giving nobody the confidence that the leadership group can turn it around.

 

This is the best option at this stage. Hopefully someone random totally out the blue and it just gets announced out of nowhere to show that no one really knows what's going on and the order preference of the names who've been rumoured. I think the only thing we can be confident of is Still was first choice and we didn't get him tidied down soon enough (Reims contract might be the reason for that) and Lens pouched him away.

 

I bet the players are buzzing to arrive back for pre season with their mate Doddsy

 

What went wrong last season then? How come we had the worst (or 2nd, can't quite remember if Rotherham surpassed us) form in the league in 2024?

 

Could be a briefing from the club maybe

 

Our decent start saved us. Another 3/4 games and we would’ve been down, no doubt about it.

 

I feel like we've got a very good thing going, not perfect, but better and more organised than most of the teams around us. This includes Speakman, KLD and the coaching staff. We don't have megabucks, and we're working within a specific remit that is a bit different to the majority of Championship clubs, so far this has worked very well, moving us from a top-8 League One team to a team that has very real Premier League ambitions. Last season was a disappointment on the pitch no doubt, but the team is essentially the same-one that got us into the playoffs the year before, so massive changes are not needed, just a coach with good ideas and a few tweaks to the playing staff (a striker the main one).

When you start to take out certain important pieces, as we did with Mowbray we started to see the wheels come off, I think we were 8th when Mowbray got sacked and although that was just a single man we weren't able to keep things together and ended up near the bottom. If we take out Speakman, whomever comes next will have a new spin on what has already been built and may decide to deconstruct it, which can take time, something I think we all agree, we don't have too much of.

We had more than a decade of sacking managers every 18-24 months, I'd really love us to find some consistency now.

 

This is where the manager appointment is absolutely key this year, I honestly think we still have a squad good enough to compete top half of the table at least but tactically we were absolutely horrendous with no consistency whatsoever. Form wise, over the last 10 games of the season we were 3rd bottom which is definitely relegation level and that is solely down to the head coach appointment of Dodds, some of the basic setups and team selections were just weird.

We need to get the right person for the current squad initially, no matter if Speakman is still here or not.

For all we know our first manager target was Still, we offered him a good deal, waited around and he f*cked us over when another team came in. 2nd choice may well have been Rosenior, who again appears to have been swayed by another club taking an interest. If thats correct we have done the right thing and moved onto another option rather than waiting for him to decide if we are good enough, he's not the right man if he's willing to wait for a better offer.

The biggest worry for me is how possible candidates may view the club, media reports are making us look a bit desperate and the statement on Friday from KLD seems to have made things worse now that Rosenior is out of the picture.

I'm sure we will have someone in soon but christ knows who that may be!

 

Some good points mate, I think timing wise right now with the transfer window etc probably make it difficult to get rid of him now, fresh eyes can be a good thing though, a new dof doesn’t mean we rip the whole thing up just have to find the right one but again that’s easier said than done, ultimately I’m siding on moving on from speakman just the issue of the timing we move for me