As an employer there is a moment, an immediate response when an employee resigns. It is a moment of full on disaster. I always find it interesting because, and I say this with love and respect to anyone who has ever worked for me, quite often the second response, 5 seconds later is ‘thank God for that’. Even when someone key to the business decided to move on, my second reaction was, ‘OK, this gives me a chance to rethink things’.
In business and in football, people leave and the important thing is to make the disaster moment short and get to the key question… Am I bothered? And on Friday I surprised even myself with the conclusion ‘no, I’m really not that bothered’.
Many are still in the wailing and gnashing of teeth stage of Alex Neil’s departure. I get that. For once in quite a long time we looked to be moving in the right direction, there seemed to be a unity in the set up, an appreciation of the common goal, a togetherness, but that ended on Friday. And the blame for that ending lies with one man – Alex Neil. Nothing says positive harmony to a group of people like the manager getting you together and saying ‘I’m leaving’.
His decision is about himself. His decision to reject longer term contracts at every club he’s been to and prefer the one year rolling structure, is a decision of a man who, to be fair to him, was clever enough to know that there is no job security in his profession, so why sign something that causes him a problem if he fancies a change?
Now, why does he fancy a change? That’s the bigger problem we need to look at. And my conclusion is that it’s a selfish one. Sunderland took on a manager last season who had failed in his previous role at Preston. His ‘value’ was lower than it had been since he burst on to the scene at Hamilton. Then he got us promoted. Not only that, he got us a start in the Championship that surprised many of us and certainly a lot of outsiders. Then someone else contacted him (we’re told in unprofessional circumstances last weekend at Stoke but we can’t confirm or deny he was tapped up so we won’t comment). He’d gone from his lowest to his highest value and he has chosen to take the chance. Good luck to him.
If you go back to that Hamilton job, he was unheard of, got them promoted through the play offs even though no one thought he could, got them a decent start the following season and then got a phone call from Norwich and went there – took the opportunity while his value was high. We can’t be surprised.
By the way, the Hamilton players and fans were devastated that he left… before staying up and doing better the following season without him.
Neil also knows how the rest of his career has gone. He had immediate success at Norwich, got them promoted, didn’t leave and got them relegated again, couldn’t get the bounce the following season and was sacked. Went to Preston, immediately improved them, couldn’t quite get them to the play offs and then stagnated, unable to get the second bounce. I think Neil was ideal for us this season and I’m gutted he won’t lead us through to a safe, mid-table finish next May. But I think we’d have sacked him next season when we didn’t get the second bounce. I suspect he knew that too. Nothing about him or his career tells me he would have still been at Sunderland when we get back to the Premier League.
The message being pushed by those close to him is that he wasn’t supported in the transfer window. Two things to highlight there, he’s moving to a club being investigated (and likely to be charged) over financial fair play irregularities and facing a transfer embargo. Good luck knocking really hard on the door if there’s a transfer ban.
Secondly, everyone knows what the Sunderland transfer plans and structures are. If we signed someone who was 30 we’d all be shocked. And that hasn’t changed since he arrived. We are signing players who good quality coaches can improve to help our team and then become valuable for sell on. Can he be surprised that we signed the players we signed this summer? No. If the club are considering an offer for Stewart or Cirkin for far more than we paid should we be shocked? No. It’s what he signed up to. If he signed up as a manager responsible for signing players, I’d have sympathy, but he didn’t.
Far more important for Sunderland is not to mope and regret the departure of our manager. He wasn’t going to be around for an awful lot longer anyway, while we the fans, and the club, will be going long after he’s left Stoke and the next club he does the same thing to and the one after that.
It’s time to look forwards. Time for Speakman to do his job and bring in a coach capable of carrying on the journey Neil helped us start, to develop players someone else signs, understanding how the club trades, and helping us get back where we belong. Someone who understands that the song we sing isn’t ‘Sunderland ‘til I get offered a bit more money by a less exciting Championship club in the Midlands’.
Am I bothered he’s gone? Disappointed. Disappointed in him, disappointed in his timing, the way he’s done it and the unnecessary pressure he’s added to those working in the club but in terms of the long term of Sunderland AFC, no, not really.
He told us he kept banging on the door, well, all the best Alex, don’t let it hit you on the way out.
