Next Manager Rumours and Candidates

Roker Report

My patience with the Sunderland hierarchy is now at an end

“It’s time for Kyril to find a new Director of Football and to let Speakman spend more time on LinkedIn looking for his next opportunity,” says Mark Egan.

Tony Mowbray was sacked back in December, almost seven months ago. Since then, the club has lurched from one fiasco to another, putting an end to any talk that we have now entered into a new era of professional leadership. In any other business, the boss – Speakman – would be handed his cards and there would be serious questions about the board’s stewardship.

When Mowbray left, I assumed that Speakman knew who he wanted to bring in. That’s the whole point of having a Director of Football. Managers and coaches come and go, but the person at the top always knows who is out there in the market, with the same footballing philosophy and desire to achieve that we need at the club.

But no, Mowbray left and the club did not have a successor lined up.

So much for the big push for the play-offs; vital time was lost as we started our search. Mistake two was the appointment of Beale, clearly not the right man for the job, with a strong whiff of failure about him.

At least Speakman got something right by sacking him, but mistake three came with the decision to let Mike Dodds continue until the end of the season. So much for the obsession with progression; this was acceptance of mediocrity.

Dodds was so clearly not up to the job that it became a painful chore to watch games as Sunderland lost to clearly inferior teams because the manager couldn’t set the team up properly or change things at key moments in the game.

All this happened at a point in the season where if a strong appointment had been made, we could have pushed for the play-offs. Instead, we drifted down to 16th, with the League One abyss opening up beneath us again.

I was convinced that the new manager would be in the stands for the final game of the season. After all, we’d had weeks to interview candidates, and surely the Director of Football already had his list of targets.

My hopes rose further when I heard that Will Still had resigned from his job. I know nothing about Still, other than he can switch from speaking French to English really well, but he seems to be a young talent and probably worth a go. However, Still was not in the Concourse, and weeks dragged on without obvious progress.

We were linked with some rank outsiders – the St Mirren manager and someone from Stockport. Still went to Lens, and suddenly we’re interested in Rosenior. Then he rules himself out, and the club is exposed, a laughing stock again, manager-less and clueless, just days before the fixtures are released.

Rigg has declined to sign a contract until he knows who will manage the club – fair enough – and Neil is also stalling on an extension to his contract, no doubt with similar thoughts in his mind. The transfer window is opening, but we have no head coach – why would a player sign for us, ignorant of the identity of the person who will pick the team when we line up for our first game in a few weeks?

Shambles is an over-used word in relation to this club, but that’s what we’ve got, and the blame lies at the door of our Director of Football.

Is this what our owner and our board expect from their employee? Does this reflect the instructions he’s been given? “Kristjaan, your target for 2024 is to ensure the club is completely rudderless and to absolutely destroy the optimism created during the 2022-23 season” – I doubt it.

On the LinkedIn app, beloved of corporate job seekers, Speakman describes himself as leading on “succession planning strategy.”

Well mate, you’ve failed. Completely and utterly failed.

It’s time for Kyril to find a new Director of Football and to let Speakman spend more time on LinkedIn looking for his next opportunity.

Full Report

Sunderland manager target Marti Cifuentes once labelled the ‘worst coach ever’

Cifuentes, 41, didn’t have much of a playing career, instead turning his attention to coaching at a young age.

The Spaniard started out in the lower leagues of Spain before getting his break in Scandinavia with Norwegian side Sandefjord in 2018.

In more than two years in charge, he won 33 of 81 games, then being snapped up by four-time Danish champions AaB at the start of 2022.

But in an interview with Guardian in December 2023, Cifuentes revealed his early struggles at AaB, recalling how one headline branded him the ‘worst ever coach’ that the Danish Superliga had ever seen.

Cifuentes explained: “When I went to Denmark it took six official games for me to win.

“The headline in the main sport newspaper was ‘The worst coach ever in the history of the Superliga’.

“I am very used to being inexperienced, too young, whatever. I’m just a very optimistic person. I don’t have any magical recipe.”

Cifuentes would eventually turn things around at AaB, later prompting Hammarby to bring him to the Swedish Allsvenskan, and then QPR to bring him to the Championship.

With QPR, Cifuentes won 11 of 33 games to keep the R’s in the Championship, boasting a 43.73% win rate after 295 games as a manager.

Why Marti Cifuentes could be the perfect next Sunderland manager

Cifuentes’ comments are certainly interesting. And they might suggest why he’d be a very good fit for Sunderland right now.

Arguably, whoever becomes the next Sunderland manager will be up against it from the start, given the current unrest among fans.

Whoever arrives will come in knowing that they weren’t the club’s first-choice, so that’s something of a setback in itself.

That, and the Black Cats’ next manager will likely lose some key players during this summer’s transfer window, with hopes of Speakman pulling off some good summer signings currently very low.

But Cifuentes’ track record of defying the odds, and of defying negative expectations could serve him well should he arrive at the Stadium of Light.

The next Sunderland manager will certainly need to be optimistic about the club’s fortunes.

Sunderland are very much in a mess right now and if the owners get this appointment wrong, or they hire a Beale-type character whose comments causes further anger among fans, the 2024/25 season could prove devastating.

But Cifuentes’ management record, and his calm and optimistic demeanour, could make him the ideal next Sunderland manager.

He is probably desperate enough to work within Speakman’s model 😡

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Kyril Louis-Dreyfus warned he's putting Sunderland 'in danger' amid recent manager rumours

Molly Burke

Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has been warned that he is putting Sunderland in ‘danger’ after 120 days without a manager.

Sunderland don’t appear to be any closer to appointing a new manager after missing out on Liam Rosenior.

The 39-year-old looked the most likely to take up the hot seat on Wearside, before pulling out in favour of the Burnley job.

It is unclear whether Rosenior will even move to Turf Moor this summer, but it has still left Sunderland in absolute chaos.

The club have insisted that they have a number of unnamed candidates on their radar, but it has been worryingly quiet in recent days, while rumours of Frank Lampard’s arrival were quickly shut down.

Former midfielder Carlton Palmer has now criticised the club and has admitted they could be ‘in danger’.

Sunderland are in a ‘very worrying’ position

Speaking to Football League World, Palmer said: “Sunderland have been linked with every man and his dog for their vacant manager’s job.

“Like I’ve said before, I’m repeating myself week in and week out.

“It must be very worrying for supporters that still, to this day, that they haven’t been able to secure the services of a head coach.

“Frank Lampard will obviously be desperate to get back into the game, but he won’t want to get in under the terms that Sunderland want the head coach to work under; not being able to bring your own staff, not being able to sign the players you want to sign.

“Frank is desperate to get in work, but I can’t imagine Frank working under those circumstances.

“It’s a fantastic football club, Sunderland, it’s well supported, it’s got good young players, and I’m telling you now they’re in danger of losing their players.

“They’ve got players under contract for two or three years, but they’re in danger of losing their players in the summer, because they certainly won’t be renewing their contracts until they know who the head coach is going to be and if they’re going to be able to work with that said head coach.”

Sunderland are in big trouble if they end up with an unhappy dressing room

Sunderland’s one positive this summer is that they have no key players out of contract, while it is only Chris Rigg whose scholarship deal expires in 2025.

The Black Cats are under no major threat of losing their players for free, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in big trouble if players begin to lose interest and entertain interest elsewhere.

Rigg and Dan Neil have already made it clear they won’t put pen to paper on a new contract until they discover who the new manager will be.

But that doesn’t mean if Sunderland appoint a new head coach tomorrow then all will be fine – they still have to get the appointment right too.

If someone like Dave Chanillor was announced as the new manager tomorrow, fans certainly wouldn’t expect it to be an arrival that would convince Rigg or Neil to sign the contract.

If the players don’t believe in the manager and what the club are promising them, then they will begin to turn and will want to leave.

Given how happy and committed our team have seemed in recent seasons, it would show just how drastically the club has fallen in a very short period of time.

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130-goal Sunderland legend could be the answer to 'rudderless ship' saga

The Black Cats players need a new manager on board soon after a summer which has seen no movement in the hot seat

Sunderland fans must be getting weary of the constant speculation around who will be the next head coach and who can blame them? The saga has dragged on far too long and has left the club looking like a rudderless ship heading for thick fog.

When the owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus announced an appointment was imminent, most of those interested will have knelt down, looked to the heavens and said, ‘thank goodness for that.’ Except it hasn’t happened yet and still the same old names get regurgitated until the time they sign on the dotted line with another club.

It’s tedious to say the least. Why don’t the club just get on with it? They acted quickly enough when Michael Beale was brought in after removing Tony Mowbray.

When all is said and done, football is really about players. Yes, those players need to be motivated by a manager and it must be said that Mike Dodds, a lovely man, was as inspirational as a trip to the dentist as the club slumped alarmingly towards the end of last season. But it is they who decide how they will perform on any given day.

Maybe it’s time to go for someone like Kevin Phillips who is Sunderland through and through and as passionate as they come. Supporters would back him to the hilt. Could he do any worse than Beale?

What’s most important is getting someone in now so that players understand where they are. Someone like Phillips could be that added incentive for players to want to stay put.

OK, so he hasn’t got a great deal of experience. So what? Every manager gets sacked sooner rather than later. In Chelsea’s case, they recruit the best in the business and the 17 ‘permanent’ bosses they have had since 2004 have lasted a little more than a year each on average.

Sunderland have the nucleus of a good squad and keeping hold of the likes of Jack Clarke, Dan Ballard, Trai Hume, Dan Neil and Anthony Patterson should be high on the list of priorities. Who knows, appointing someone like Phillips while ending a painful wait might just be a good way of achieving that

He's already stated on tippy tappy football he wouldn't want it under the current philosophy of the owners