It’s not long now before the season finally comes to an end which is something that feels like it has taken an age to come to, anyways, here are the latest things going on around Sunderland…
SPEAKMAN OUT?
This weekend it was rumoured that Kristjaan Speakman could be on his way out of the club at the end of the season, with French club Lyon linked with him. Speakman is somewhat of a polarizing figure at Sunderland, whether he is good for us or not divides Sunderland fans. For example, when the rumours came about, we ran a poll on X (formerly Twitter) to see if fans would be happy or sad to see him go. There was almost three thousand votes, where 53.6% of those said they would be happy to see him go, and the remaining 46.6% said they would be sad to see him depart the club.
Personally, I think he did a great job and played his part in getting us promoted to the Championship, the signings of players like Patrick Roberts and Jack Clarke in League One are very impressive, but in the last year the decisions that have been made have been really poor. Sacking Mowbray and replacing him with he who shall not be named, as well as signing four strikers, all of which have been displaced by a 18 year old playing out of position isn’t good.
SAFC CHANGES
Today Sunderland have announced that they have signed a new deal with sports merchandiser Fanatics, who will become the club’s new retail partner for the next decade. As well as this they have announced that there will be a new retail store at the Black Cat House. There will also be a new online store, ran by Fanatics. A move in the right direction for the club commercially.
RENE MARIC?
The latest name linked with the vacant head coach position is Rene Maric. At 31, he is young for a manager/head coach but they’re always getting younger these days, gone are the days of bringing in someone with experience. It seems we could be the latest Championship club to bring in someone who has worked behind the scenes at some of the biggest clubs in the world. Maric currently works at Bayern Munich, and is in charge of their under 19’s. Before that, he was the assistant head coach at Leeds under Jesse Marsch, and before that he was at Borussia Dortmund as assistant manager to Marco Rose.
Bringing in someone like Maric comes with it’s risks, as he has no experience of being in full control of a senior squad. Sure he was the assistant manager/coach at some top clubs, but he hasn’t been in the position where the pressure is on the most. With that said, other clubs in our division have made similar appointments and they have paid off, with Ipswich they brought in Kieran McKenna and the only experience he had at the time of his appointment was being in charge of Manchester United’s Under 18’s. It’s the new big thing in the Championship now, the Boro job is Michael Carrick’s first as head coach, same for Danny Rohl with Sheffield Wednesday.
DEFOE WANTS THE JOB
Jermain Defoe has openly stated he wants the Sunderland job previously, but now he has held ‘informal talks’ with the club surrounding the head coach position. He hasn’t sat down with the club and had a proper interview, although they are sure to know of his intentions. When speaking on his desire to be the head coach, he insisted that experience is necessary, and even though he has none as a head coach, he said he is talking to coaches who have experience that he would bring with him to Sunderland.
KEVIN PHILLIPS DRAMA
In one of our recent roundups we mentioned that Kevin Phillips was looking forward to the summer where he could utilise his Sunderland connections to bring some people to Hartlepool, but in a surprising turn of events he has since been let go and replaced immediately. Initially, Hartlepool had offered Super Kev a two year contract after keeping the Pool’s safe, but later decided that they would be better off letting him go, and replacing him with Darren Sarll. For Phillips it will no doubt be a shame, but it could leave him in a good position for another job in the National League as he has a promotion to his name from his time at South Shields, as well as a season of safety in the National League with Hartlepool. It will be interesting to see where Phillips goes next.
