[polldaddy poll=9771633]
Even before the lamentable SAFC club statement on the bleak farce of the supposed attempts to sign a manager, Pete Sixsmith had – with customary eloquence and gallows humour – captured the miserable state of affairs with his piece entitled “The comic opera that is SAFC just now“.
Then came the extraordinary statement announcing that Ellis Short’s business affairs, specifically his desire to sell the club, were holding up an appointment.
“Thanks for utterly wasting my time,” Derek McInnes must have been thinking.
So now, as this incredible and troubling saga drags on, the questions beg itself: since the current masters clearly care little or insufficiently about the immediate future of the club, beyond how it affects them personally, what are we, the fans, meant to make of it?
Here’s your chance to say what you feel.
Remember that every other Championship side, our rivals for promotion (or avoidance of another relegation), has a manager in place.
Many have begun serious player recruitment. Beyond selling Jordan Pickford, clearing the way for Jermain Defore to leave on free (an arrangement that beggared belief in itself) and trying to flog off Lamine Kone and maybe a couple of promising youngsters, we have done nothing. Except dither. As if it really shouldn’t matter to some of the world’s most loyal and passionate fans what becomes of their club.
Or do Short and his chief executive Martin Bain simply believe they know best?
All graphics courtesy of Jake
Amid so many disappointments in more than half a century of supporting Sunderland, I feel as much anger just now as at almost any time in the past. Salut! Sunderland bends over backwards to be fair, to acknowledge realities and practicalities, but the present situation is quite simply monstrous unless resolved within days.
The question you see above is longer than the suggested answers but you can, as usual, compose your own response to it. (Update: the “others” already posted are “they are taking us down to League 1” and “replace the whole group managing the club. Bring in enthusiastic people” – we will add others in due course).
Comments may be posted below and if there is a healthy postbag, we’ll award a prize.
Ian Todd’s point above reminds us that it is not easy to come up with a set of suggested responses that covers all points of view.
Not as a Salut! Sunderland policy but the way the polls work, readers do not see the “other answers” though the editors can. So far there have been four:
1) They are taking us down to League 1
2) Replace the whole group managing the club. Bring in enthusiastic people
3) we were never going to go straight back up. we need couple of year to rebuild.
4) Short shoulders the blame. Bain working with tied hands.
I shall add any others received before the polls runs its course.
I haven’t voted because none of the questions matched my belief that we had no chance of promotion back next season anyway. So the current stalemate over ownership and a managerial appointment makes no difference. The fault doesn’t lie in the present but the past.
I feel an Ian Todd special coming along, Ian! Feel free to expand your analysis …
The past pretty much dictates the present, the powers that be, and were, did not heed the warnings….as the old adage goes…
‘History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time’
There is only one thing that our management team could do with any degree of competence – write a book on how not to manage a football club. They would of course need someone to write it for them, but the story line would be all their own work.
Don’t have any faith in them being able to appoint a competent ‘Ghost Writer’!!!!!!
Would probably end up on the ‘Mills & Boon’ shelf.
Didn’t Shack beat them to it ? In his autobiography he reportedly included a chapter entitled ” What the average chairman knows about football “,and left it blank !
I’m getting to the stage where I am embarrassed talking about my club. Surely to go to a potential manager who can see that the club is supported by a magnificent fan base and NOT tell him, “Oh by the way, did we mention out owner wants to sell the club?” shows a great lack of respect and forethought. Ellis Short has not enamoured himself to anyone during this debacle.
Interestingly, the Echo is reporting that a consortium under Fulwell 73, a television company, are looking to raise money to buy the club from Mr Short. Whether they can raise that kind of cash remains to be seen, but there is always crowdfunding. They are all Sunderland supporters and spent their youth in the famous end at Roker, hence the name.
Thumbs down by me was accidental, sorry, this tablet is a Di Fanti model from Rodwell & partners.
Quite resounding vote of no confidence so far. As of just after 5pm, of 124 votes cast, 93 (75 per cent) think our owner and Chief Exec have pretty much blown away any chance of immediate promotion. Nineteen (15 per cent) thought we might still be OK provided there was a quick appointment – ie between now and June 30 – while two, perhaps ironically, ticked ‘not at all – they can let take as long as they want’
Will they finally get the sense of anger?
Sunderland are the laughing stocks of the football world and I cannot see them fighting anything this coming season but relegation.
I started watching them in 1947 and this situation we find ourselves in is nothing short of ludicrous.
The guy at the top(Ellis Short) should be ashamed of his performance at trying to run the club and the sooner he gets out of the club the better.
This is the trouble with these millionaires these days who think that if they have money they can run a football club when they have no idea about the game and the passion felt by true supporters.
Ian, I have just one quibble with the points you make. Short is billionaire and if he really wants to go could easily stand a hit of a few million quid.