Roy Keane was right. Sunderland won\u2019t ever be a force in the English top flight again until Chairman Ellis Short has handed the reins over to someone else.<\/p>\n
Short has a horrific track record in hiring and firing managers at the Stadium of Light and has been accused on more than one occasions of a \u201ctrigger finger.\u201d<\/p>\n
You would think he\u2019d have learnt by now.<\/p>\n
Favourite for the post recently vacated by Dick Advocaat is Sam Allardyce, the neanderthal football manager who professes to be a forward thinker because he uses ProZone and the like, but who still plays football out of the dark ages.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig Sam\u201d was tolerated at West Ham for a time because the east Londoners were getting much needed results. But when the locals decided it was time for some football to be played in the \u201cWest Ham way,\u201d Allardyce\u2019s template fell woefully short.<\/p>\n
Hit and hope, route one, call it whatever you like. Just don\u2019t try and dress it up as football.<\/p>\n
Sunderland\u2019s long-suffering fan base have had enough of not being entertained. Of paying their hard-earned in return for some of the most turgid performances seen in that part of the north east for many a year.<\/p>\n
So local bragging rights aren\u2019t an issue at the moment. So what. Even the wins over neighbours Newcastle can\u2019t disguise what a perilous position the Black Cats are in.<\/p>\n
Allardyce will work with what he has until January but we can then expect a demand for big money and for his usual cronies to surface. Don\u2019t be at all surprised if Kevin Nolan risks the wrath of the Magpies to join their fiercest rivals for one last big pay day.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all in the usual Allardyce script.<\/p>\n
In the short term, Allardyce\u2019s methods usually have some degree of success. But he isn\u2019t as progressive as he would have you believe and it won\u2019t be too long before Short realises that he\u2019s made yet another mistake.<\/p>\n
Six managers in four years speaks volumes. For a club as big in the locale and as well supported as Sunderland are, it\u2019s a travesty that they continue to be run in the most amateurish manner.<\/p>\n
A club of that size and importance should be looking to the future to their managers, not the past.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s capture of Jurgen Klopp has garnered some of the biggest press attention since Jose Mourinho first announced himself as the \u201cSpecial One\u201d and West Ham secured Slaven Bilic, one of European football\u2019s hottest managerial properties.<\/p>\n
Sunderland should be operating in that kind of marketplace.<\/p>\n
If you want to bring the glory days of Phillips and Quinn back, then you need to look a bit further ahead than your bank balance because you get what you pay for.<\/p>\n
Allardyce is big on personality but short on delivery. And Short\u2019s delivery of this particular manager will only end in more tears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roy Keane was right. Sunderland won\u2019t ever be a force in the English top flight again until Chairman Ellis Short has handed the reins over to someone else. Short has a horrific track record in hiring and firing managers at the Stadium of Light and has been accused on more than one occasions of a \u201ctrigger finger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[643],"tags":[174,177],"class_list":["post-8881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sport","tag-news","tag-ticker"],"yoast_head":"\n