Liam Rosenior is now the favourite for the head coach role at Sunderland (my club). The fanbase are quite split on the prospect. A lot think he underachieved with the squad you had, particularly in the second half of the season, by not at least getting into the playoffs. A lot are also concerned by the style of football, thinking it’s ponderous, slow and lacking in intensity or attacking intent (as a bit of a stats nerd I fall into this camp as your chance creation was relatively poor and you progressed the ball at the slowest rate in the division etc). Your owner’s comments about the reasons for the sacking have only exacerbated this and certainly have done nothing to dispel those concerns. On the other hand it’s acknowledged that in the main your fans really liked and seemingly rated him and that most were not pleased he was sacked. Also that his players seem to like, rate and respect him. Plus that other clubs seem to trust him with developing their better prospects hence why you were able to loan the likes of Morton and Carvalho. With apologies for the long introduction I was just interested to get your views on his strengths and weaknesses and pros and cons directly. Is there anything you could say to reassure those that don’t want him or any words of warning for those that perhaps have too high an expectation of him?
You have pretty much hit the nail on the head with your summary. If his nan never lived in Sunderland you'll find it a hard watch at times. More wins away from home than at home is a good bet.
The build-up that Rosenior prefers is definitely patient and sometimes leads to potential opportunities being squandered in order to retain possession. When it works though, it can be very entertaining - something a screen full of stats doesn't always relate.
Definitely can agree with that. I never read too much into stats alone, it has to be corroborated with the eye test. I haven’t seen enough of you last season though to make a proper judgement (hence asking here).
Most on here thought that he'd made sufficient progress and very few were calling for his head until the owner provided him with his P45. The football could be best described as 'frustrating' at times,especially at home, but away from home he was getting results and he seemed to be popular among the players. I don't think he'd be a bad recruit and he'd certainly be a huge improvement on Beale
I’m in the camp that would have preferred to see him given more time to see if he had learned anything from his experience with us, in terms of progressing the ball more quickly, as I agreed with all of the positive points that you have picked up on but ultimately the owner presumably wasn’t confident that was going to happen. Whether his sacking will have made any difference to his thought process on the matter remains to be seen but I do feel that another team may well benefit from his experience here.
You're only going to get conflicting answers on here. Some of us loved him, others less so. There have been pages and pages of debate about all the things you've mentioned. There isn't a consensus. What I would say is, I'd be surprised if he took the Sunderland job, purely because it all seems a bit chaotic there at the moment. I think LR really values long-term thinking and will want to get his whole club buying into his way of playing in order to build something over a period of time like Brighton and Brentford have done. That seemed to be what he wanted to do here, and it took him weeks of discussion before he accepted the job. Ultimately, he still got burned in the end because we decided we didn't want to stick to his plan after all, 18 months in. I can see him being really choosy about his next job and avoiding any where he doesn't believe he'll get complete buy-in and plenty of time.
Seems Rosenior is now the favourite for our Head Coach and I'd be happy with that. Are you pleased to have a new start under a different head coach or were any of you fond of Liam? He seems like a good bloke and it seems our supporters are willing to give him a chance. Can't say the same for Beale who was a non starter after sacking Mowbray who was doing a great job under tough circumstances. Good luck for the new season.
Nice bloke, good man-manager but a bit pig-headed regarding style of play and tactics for someone so inexperienced. His style was also a really boring brand of possession football. We ranked highest for most touches and passes in our own third, moved the ball the slowest and created few chances per game. Many fans were upset he got sacked after finishing 7th, though I think the fact he played for us and has a connection to the club earned him patience another coach in similar circumstances wouldn’t have.
Both i.e. pleased to have a "new start", but also retain some "fondness" for Rosenior (although he is a bit up his own arse at times, when in reality he hasn't yet achieved anything in his managerial career). Some, including me, were concerned when he was first appointed that he had very little experience. I believe this lack of experience (nous) has shown. I guess it's fair to say that everybody here wanted him to succeed long term. I certainly did. His football, especially at home, was for the most part far too slow, ponderous, predictable and unsuccessful (only 2 wins at home in 2024). When it clicked it was a joy to watch (yt for Tufan's goal v QPR) but it seldom clicked. Someone else posted " to see if he had learned anything from his experience with us, in terms of progressing the ball more quickly". My take is that our owner & his team will have discussed with Rosenior on more than one occasion before sacking him, and concluded from his responses that he (Rosenior) wasn't prepared to change his 'philosophy', so I doubt that we would have seen and that you will see much evidence of change. I really don't see why a club like Sunderland would see him as the right appointment. But good luck to him, except against us obviously.
Without reopening old arguments - and not wanting to say you are wrong Kalman as you are entitled to your opinion - but wanted to point out to our Sunderland visitors that there were also a number of us who didn’t find the football boring.
When some of you start questioning what you're seeing, he'll split your fan base by exclaiming the fans don't understand what he's trying to do etc. Some will lap that up and look down on the others, who will continue to question it because it won't change. The rift will grow and you'll end up with constant bickering... Unless your fan base is unanimous that top of the league for own third and own half possession is a good thing. All of that being said his tactics work to a point. Got us 7th, and we were 6th before our slump after December recruitment (which he largely couldn't get a tune out of). Good manager, not a great one, by any stretch.
I think he's just like any young coach taking their first steps, they want to stand out and be noticed, so Rosie plays a brand of football that other teams might not necessarily employ. It's very possession heavy, but it needs high quality players in order to enact it. We had half a cracking team with the likes of Omur, Tufan, Greaves and Seri, but half a team who perhaps weren't quite the type of player to suit the system. As a result, we found ourselves behind in more than half our games last season, which meant we were constantly chasing and once teams scored, they would just sit in and defend, particularly lower ranked teams like Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham. When it did work, it worked brilliantly and inversely against the teams at the top end of the table we produced some of the best football I've seen us play at this level. We brushed aside Southampton like they weren't even there, went away to Leicester and won, played out a cracking 3-3 with Ipswich and should have beaten Leeds were it not for a horror miss from our striker. If we were to play tomorrow and you had Rosie in charge, I think you'd beat us because we will no doubt be playing an open style ourselves this season. Going into it, you have to understand that the system he plays is incredibly patient, waiting for the opponent to press before playing through their lines. It looks very defensive and involves a lot of backpasses to the keeper (hopefully Patterson has improved his distribution, not sure what Bishop is like). You might see Ryan Allsop arrive as he's been allowed to leave, Rosie loves him and he isn't the disaster some people make him out to be, he's a very good passer of the ball which is vital). In terms of development, one can't argue that he improved not only our football but also our players. Lewie Coyle was perhaps not hitting the heights he did last season at the start of this one, but by the end he looked a completely different player. Seri went from making pressured mistakes to looking cool and calm all the time. Tufan went from being knackered after 60 minutes to being a pressing forward who constantly looked like a goal scoring threat. And those are seasoned professionals, yet he managed to change their game to suit the system more. There was some emphasis on home grown talent, something I know Sunderland like to do, but we did see son of club legend (Ian Ashbee) Stan Ashbee make his debut in the cup and Matty Jacob was promoted from the reserves. Tyrell Sellars-Fleming, Vaughn Covil, Andy Smith and James Furlong all made their senior debuts alongside Ashbee and Jacob this season, so it shows a pathway to the senior team if the players are good enough. His training methods are harsh and very detailed, we had players vomiting in pre season because they were being wrung out in the heat, but looking back, it paid off because the intensity levels we would play at didn't seem to tire us out. In the 2022-23 season we looked leggy around Easter, which didn't matter that much because we were safe by then, but this season we looked fine, it was mistakes from turning the ball over which cost us. Overall, he's a good manager. He did well with us, he improved us and had the season gone on for another five games, we probably would have made the playoffs. He's very outspoken and he gets fined a lot, he missed a few games this season because he was suspended by the FA (in his defence, he had a point), but it shows his passion for the club.
I liked Rosenior, I think he deserved longer. We were very much a work in progress. Home form was patchy, away form was fantastic. The signings we made in January were fantastic, but it could also be argued they added instability to the team and we just ran out of games. If we’d have had another 6 games after the last game of the season, I’d have been very confident of the play offs. For me personally, I’d rather have Rosenior than an untried German manager that has never managed in England or the Championship.
