BREAKING NEWS: Black Cats owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus finally appoints a new manager, Will Still, who left Reims, on a four year contract – Mutual terms agreed
BREAKING NEWS: Black Cats owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus finally appoints a new manager, Will Still, who left Reims, on a four years contract – Mutual terms agreed
Now that Will Still has left Reims, managerless Sunderland has an easy path to appoint him,
six months after losing out on their top head coach target.
In December, the 31-year-old was at the top of the team’s wish list,
but Sunderland was unable to come to an agreement on a long-term contract’s price.
He departed Reims by mutual consent following the team’s decline in performance in the second half of the Ligue 1 season,
and they can now pursue him. Still is reportedly eager for the position and a move to England.
Perhaps not the chosen one just yet. I am aware that Sunderland has also given thought to Rene Maric,
the highly acclaimed Under-19 coach of Bayern Munich.
Rene Maric was Jesse Marsch’s assistant at Leeds United and is currently the Bundesliga giants’ first-ever head of coaching and playing style.
When Sunderland finally decided to appoint Michael Beale in January,
after hearing nothing but positive things about his abilities to develop players and teach, Maric was also on the shortlist.
Despite his aptitude for teaching—and I acknowledge that some players enjoyed
with him—Beale found the position to be too big for him; he was disliked by the crowd and never felt like the perfect match.
It felt like a white flag wave for the campaign when Michael Dodds,
a close associate of powerful football director Kirstjaan Speakman,
was named interim manager, and that was exactly what happened.
When Dodds took over, Sunderland was four points out of the Championship play-offs.
However, he has won two of his 12 games in charge, putting an end to rumors in the
Stadium of Light that this was merely a trial run for a full-time position should he be chosen.
Decision-making is coming closer to home,
as the team wants the next man in place before Wearside undergoes a major summer of change.
Although it was intended to complete the appointment by June, that deadline might potentially be accelerated.
It will be an interesting decision.
Given his background and his accomplishment of taking Sheffield United to the Premier League a year ago,
Paul Heckingbottom, another name that has been heavily mentioned in the bookies’ odds,
would seem to be a perfect fit for the position. Although he enjoyed some backing from the football department,
Sunderland’s decision to forgo the tried-and-true path makes him unlikely to be in the race at this time.
That is a story unto itself. Tony Mowbray, the team’s seasoned manager,
guided them to a strong sixth-place result, but he never managed to win over Kyril Louis-Dreyfus,
the club’s 26-year-old owner, who continues to be the decision-maker and kingmaker.
He runs a tight ship where every penny needs to be accounted for,
making him demanding and sometimes challenging to deal with.
With 36% of the club owned by Juan Sartori, an influential Uruguayan businessman,
Sunderland has become a leaner team under their management.
They have walked away from deals that are not pricey by Championship standards and they enforce a rigid wage structure.
Rather, his intention to develop a new “model” that may outshine the Premier League is hinted at by the investments made in analytics and the scouting department. The success of that is still up in the air.
“The season has gone flat. We had a tremendous season getting into the play-offs but we’ve just lost our way a little bit,” club legend Gary Bennett tells i.
The managerial changes don’t help – having three managers in a season is not great – so it’s really important we get this one right
“They’ve got a model, it’s developing young players and they have done that well but they are lacking a bit of experience, which makes a huge difference. The model needs tweaking, they need experience in there.”
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