I think we are probably better than most believe or can really see including me. Football is a very focused business and fans tend to only look at the focal point (first team) and their league position and performances, in truth we have not excelled in that area this season (but tbh we probably over achieved last season) but if you look at the juniors and under 23 squads they have been very competitive this year (baring in mind most our first team could play under 23 and some even below that) it speaks volumes for the work that is being done as a club. The Lasses have also had a very successful season and whilst most may think of that as different it shows the amount of work that has gone int Sunderland as a sporting club. Most business's when starting out on a plan (I am looking at this as a new business as we were stripped back by the previous ownership) would expect growth in years 1 and 2 and then a bit of a levelling off period as they reasses and look to consolidate or expand (this is where we are now) I think we are ready to move the plan forward as we have built the foundations, we have built a young squad with talent, we are financially stable and the off field operations look to be getting better so in my humble opinion we are ready to progress and push harder, I just hope I am not wrong and that KLD gets this right as the new coach will be the man at the front of the charge. STID, FTM, KTF
Looking back the season ended when we sacked Mowbray without a decent replacement lined up. If we hadn't had a good start to the season we'd be looking forward to League One football about now so things could be worse. As for the future, it all depends on who we bring in. Beale was a good coach but a terrible boss. Dodds is a good development coach but an insipid head coach. Hopefully we can get a decent replacement, give them what they need and keep the plan moving forward. At the moment we're well and truly stuck in the clarts.
If we truly have an "Obsession with progression" hopefully that will be the buzzword that loses Speakman his job.
We’ll said Monkey, couldn’t have put it better and it saved me doing so OaU. Been on this merry go round far too many years to get really down like some appear to do, it’ll be our turn on the up shortly, I’ve every faith.
I think it goes further back than that. When the links to Farioli came out it created bad blood between Mowbray and the club hierarchy. The club should have stuck to their guns if they had decided Farioli was the man to take us forward.
Nick Barnes and Gary Bennett said on commentary yesterday that the brackets holding the tannoy loudspeakers around the SoL have corroded meaning there is a risk they could fall off and more than likely kill an unlucky fan sitting below. The club's solution to this? Buy new brackets/speakers and install them? No. They have put netting around the speakers in case they fall off ! This is indicative of the penny pinching going on at the club
To be fair to the club, replacing the brackets isn't a small job, would need a big old cherrypicker and some very robust RAMS in place. Not something you could act on really quickly. Netting them makes sense then repair / replace them safely in the summer
Surely we have some sort of facilities management that check up on these sorts of things though to not allow things to fall into such a state of disrepair that they are fubar. Especially from a health and safety point of view. A phone call to the Health and Safety Executive could probably see the ground closed on safety grounds
Probably not something that you would check on a weekly basis? Either way it's not a quick job to even net them let alone try and replace the brackets
I'm pretty sure Birmingham's owners closed down their academy just to stop off the constant stream of meaningless phrases from that lad's cake hole It's relentless
It would, but a lot easier installing a net than trying to take the weight of the speakers to get them off the brackets, plus a picker basket isn't the greatest of places to be if something is heavy / awkward
We've had decades of the club enticing us to strip off only to find out it's so they can pinpoint our balls more accurately with the steel toecap (ladies of the board, replace as appropriate), so I don't think it's entirely the current regime's fault. We're definitely two steps forward one step back rather than the other way round but it's only natural to be wary. Now if very little happens in the close season there'll be a lot more to worry about.
Not really, putting a net round is fairly light work. Taking the speaker down, replacing the bracket and refitting is putting a hell of a lot of weight at the top end of a picker imo
