by Amid all the usual kind words and platitudes that form the core of an official club statement to announce that a manager has been sacked, Sunderland made one thing very clear: it’s sporting director Kristjaan Speakman’s way or not.
In sacking beloved veteran manager Tony Mowbray, Speakman and the club’s largely silent owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, Sunderland’s two most powerful people, reminded everyone who is in charge and what direction they are convinced it should take the club.
The problems began in the shock tiebreaker
When Mowbray began to question the logic of the recruitment strategy and the obsession with signing young players from around the world, to nurture them, develop them and eventually sell them for a profit to reinvest in more of the same, he was sidelined. He warned, privately, that promotion was highly unlikely.
The tension that first manifested itself in the dying embers of last season’s unexpected top-six finish and narrow play-off semi-final defeat to Luton Town, when injuries deprived Sunderland of their most reliable defenders and experienced, had been bubbling beneath the surface for months.
Sources have described an “uneasy truce” in the summer. Mowbray had cornered Speakman, provocatively stating after that defeat at Kenilworth Road that he did not know if he would return as manager this season.
His popularity among supporters, fully grateful for the work he had done in leading a newly promoted Championship team to the brink of promotion, protected him. He could afford to annoy his boss and get away with it.
They wouldn’t dare fire someone adored by fans. They were not brave enough to do that, but inevitably there was a suspicion that they were biding their time.
The capture came when Sunderland were ninth in the Championship, just three points off the play-offs, but with six defeats in their last 12 games. Very few followers had asked for this to happen.
Mowbray was well aware of reports earlier in the year suggesting that Sunderland had already begun searching for his replacement. It seemed that succession planning had begun.
Speakman and Dreyfus may have just been “window shopping” and could argue that it was good practice to plan ahead, but that caused suspicion and distrust.
They shook hands and everyone got on with their work, saying the right things in public and trying to move on, but Mowbray knew things were going to be harder. Especially when the team’s best striker, the injury-prone Ross Stewart, was sold to Southampton and star signing Amad Diallo returned to Manchester United in the summer.
Suddenly the 60-year-old, who had achieved much more than anyone expected in leading Sunderland to the play-offs, looked like a caretaker manager. He was brought in as a safe pair of hands after the shock of Alex Neil’s defection to Stoke City in August last year, but he was not seen as the long-term answer.
Speakman considers himself a visionary
Mowbray had developed young players throughout his career, had vast Championship experience and would keep them at least in the second tier. After promotion, that was all that really mattered and would give Speakman and his recruiting team time to identify the next generation, within budget constraints, to add to the team.
Speakman considers himself a visionary, a modern footballer who has created the Matrix. He is obsessed with youth development.
Dreyfus may be a very wealthy young man from a very wealthy family, but those with close knowledge of how the club is run have stressed to Telegraph Sport that this is very much a business project for the Frenchman. He will not spend large sums of money chasing a dream. There is nothing wrong in it.
The recruitment department, led by Speakman, who at the age of 44 had risen up the football ladder after beginning his career as an academy coach at Derby County and Birmingham City, could provide the players for the manager to work with.
The coach or head coach would continue to mold them into a successful championship team while also improving them as individual players.
The more experience they gained, the better they and the team would be. At least that’s how the board believed it should work. That is the model they have also married. This is the model and will not be changed.
At this point, however, it is worth remembering that Mowbray was only appointed because Neil, the manager who finally took Sunderland out of League One after four years in the third tier, left for Stoke because he also questioned the recruitment strategy. and the business. model.
I didn’t want to work with children; he wanted experience and proven championship players alongside them. They are not cheap and do not have as much resale profit potential.
He, like Mowbray, began to believe that promotion, which is what the Sunderland board say they want, will not be possible unless concessions are made in recruitment. He left because he believed they never would be.
A manager number 21 in 21 years
The bottom line is that Sunderland, a club known for eating and spitting out managers, are looking for another. It will be his twentieth change on the bench since 2002.
What comes next will define everything. In the end, two managers disagreed with the model and questioned the vision. If two become three, things will start to fall apart and it will be Speakman in the line of fire.
“It was a difficult decision to make, but we remain loyal to our ambition and our strategy,” Speakman said, in a statement that many fans suspect had been in a draft file for a while. “And I felt like now was the right time to take this step.”
The tone of Dreyfus’ comments was equally direct: “As custodians of our great club, we believe in our long-term strategy which we hope will ensure the sustainability and success of the SAFC.
“Central to that approach is the relentless demand for a high performance culture to be implemented across the club and the development of a strong playing identity that you, our loyal fans, can be proud of.”
If the ultimate goal is promotion to the Premier League, a division the Wearsiders last played in six years ago, it will be up to Speakman and Dreyfus, 26, the youngest owner in English football, to decide how to get there. It is his project and Speakman’s vision and model that will hopefully return the club to the top flight.
Supporters are still willing to trust those responsible. There is goodwill following promotion from League One and last season’s near-miss in the play-offs. The players who have arrived with Speakman have talent and obvious potential. Some of the football has been great to watch.
But ultimately, that’s meaningless if they don’t have the right manager to lead them. Mowbray’s view was that many were “not quite prepared” to give Sunderland the results he needed to be in the promotion fight.
Young managers leaving their mark
There is an opinion that Speakman already knows who he wants to replace Mowbray. Sources have said he wants a younger, more dynamic coach, with modern methods, language and style.
He will have looked at the job that someone like Kieran McKenna has done for Ipswich Town and will be convinced that there is someone like him who can do a better job than Mowbray. He may be right. He could also be wrong.
Southampton sacked a popular manager, Nigel Adkins, many years ago and replaced him with a young Argentinian called Mauricio Pochettino and things went quite well.
Hull City appointed Marco Silva and almost pulled off a remarkable escape from relegation when they looked dead and buried until he arrived. Both were largely unknown foreign coaches who thrived in English football.
But would they have done it with a team as young as Sunderland’s? Could they have molded youngsters from France, Ukraine, Portugal, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and, of course, the British Isles, into promotion contenders knowing that those players would be sold when the time was right to cash in?
Could those leaving the Premier League compete consistently with teams operating with much larger wage budgets and greater transfer funds with all the extra quality and squad depth that entails?
Could they thrive without a proven striker in their team – Sunderland’s supposedly specialist centre-forwards have not scored a league goal between them this season?
Because this is what Sunderland’s new manager will have to do if he is to realize Speakman and Dreyfus’ vision.
All those responsible for football clubs have a plan, and whether it is the right one depends entirely on the results.
From the outside, Mowbray was doing a good job within the testing parameters. The people who run Sunderland disagreed. But if they mess up on the next date, his supporters might also start to disagree with the way they’re doing things.
