Dear Roker Report,
So, the dust has settled and first of all, let’s be honest and say we wouldn’t have beaten West Brom with Tony Mowbray in charge.
We would’ve arrived at the sixty minute mark at 0-0 or 1-0 down, thrown on three random substitutes and two more five minutes later, confusing everyone and being kicked in the nuts with a late goal from a corner.
Mowbray is a likeable person and there’s no doubt he had us playing some great football.
He was a nice bloke and he seemed like a great fit for us, but the cracks were showing as far back as February and March with his refusal to change anything.
Any changes he made were enforced by injuries and we only made the playoffs on the final day due to a siege mentality among the players, freak results in the run up and Millwall’s capitulation against Blackburn.
This season, he’d been in steady decline.
His defeatist attitude was akin to the David Moyes era and his claims his hands are tied were only because he’s mainly the one tying the knots himself.
If Jack Clarke and Patrick Roberts had the beating of their men nearly every game but were being nullified and the strikers were getting no service, why not swap them around so they could get past and put in an early cross?
If Bradley Dack is the answer, I seem to have forgotten the question and Mowbray’s habit of calling out the young lads publicly was shocking.
I also found it so unprofessional that he constantly talked to the press with a mouth full of sweets, and don’t get me started on the Boss gilet!
It was the right decision to part ways with Mowbray, and I’d just like to add that in my opinion, Kristjaan Speakman is the best thing to happen to Sunderland in years, and almost every button he’s pushed has improved us.
He’s calm, collected and not afraid to make big calls. We’re in the best shape we’ve been in as a club probably in my lifetime in terms of not seeing players picked off cheaply, and we’re also an attractive place for young talent, which will secure our future and hopefully make us a force when we do go back up.
