Sunderland Thread

Right arsehole alright 

But you have to factor in that Sunderland are a massive club for the level that they're currently operating at, even if the club were in the Championship the same would still apply.

Everything about the club from infrastructure, to the size of the fan-base, to the recent playing squad wage budget (17/18 season) etc screams "Premiership Football Club" so all of this has to be taken into account, ignoring it would be just plain silly. 

You also seem to be unaware that our current owner was the previous owner of Eastleigh FC, now could you imagine the jump in terms of size from owning a non league club to a club which had spent the vast majority of the last 20 years playing in the Premier League?

I will admit that the owners regular comments about the clubs potential were certainly over the top and wide of the mark, when in truth even if the club did fulfil it's potential it would be nothing more than a top 10/15 Premier League side and that's it. 

"If" the club can get promoted back to the Championship within the next season or two, I would be confident that there will be no problem finding an owner who will help the club take that next step to get back upto the Premiership. 

I do feel the club needs to have an identity i.e. in terms of the style of play right through the underage set up and into the first team, we have never had one and its the main reason why for years our recruitment in the transfer market was very much a shambles and the turnover of players every summer was frightening. 

I think Sunderland could learn a lot from Wolves, Bournemouth, Burnley etc and stick to that template long term even when results aren't going well. 

Not looking great for them this season either

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My post is more to do with seeing the club develop a club philosophy, finding an identity and sticking to it.

Every team in our academy working with the same 2/3 formations that the first team are using, any new manager coming in would need to try and stick to that template as much as possible to allow a smoother transition for academy players to step upto the first team and at least in the transfer market you will be only looking for a certain type of player who will fit the system and so forth.

Sunderland's problem was that they would go from a manager who wanted to play out from the back, to a manager who favoured a more direct approach, to a manager who didn't have a set way of playing etc which led to a sickening turnover of players every summer.

Swansea went from Martinez, to Sousa, to Rodgers to Laudrup so in a nutshell what does that mean?

It meant that even if the previous manager left, the new manager coming in was cut from the same cloth and their styles were similar so everything was centred around that (the clubs philosophy)

It's a bit like Burnley, imagine Sean Dyche left in the morning and they put Pep Guardiola in charge as opposed to Tony Pulis. Burnley would have to start allover again under Guardiola, whereas someone like Pulis would be able to work off the same template Dyche was and wouldn't be changing much due to their similar style.