Afternoon all. I'm a Sunderland fan
My condolences.
Afternoon all. I'm a Sunderland fan
would love to see a series of Sunderland till I die with him in it
We started playing football I'd never seen us play, and bringing in real quality players. Personally, I love the man even though it ended on a sour note with us. Obviously it's a lot of whataboutary, but I don't think we would be where we are now if he hadn't come in and taken us to the next level not only in terms of which league we play in but the playing philosophy too.
He wasn’t great at bringing through youngsters from our academy. Is that because the players weren’t there though? The exception would be a Lewis Dunk and he took an opportunity due to injuries.
Other young players like Tommy Elphick and Steve Cook had to move on to get games. To be fair to Gus, the alternatives to those two (Greer, Upson etc) were strong.
He did bring in young players from other clubs like Liam Brudcutt, Glenn Murray, Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes, all of whom prospered under him. He also transformed Adam El Abd.
He wasn’t great at bringing through youngsters from our academy. Is that because the players weren’t there though? The exception would be a Lewis Dunk and he took an opportunity due to injuries.
Other young players like Tommy Elphick and Steve Cook had to move on to get games. To be fair to Gus, the alternatives to those two (Greer, Upson etc) were strong.
He did bring in young players from other clubs like Liam Brudcutt, Glenn Murray, Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes, all of whom prospered under him. He also transformed Adam El Abd.
Most of the players seemed to absolutely love him.
He didn't bring a lot of youth through, Lewis Dunk was about the only one that I can think of. Although he didn't appear to have a problem working with younger players - he bought a 19 or 20 year old Ashley Barnes from Plymouth's reserves and played him week in week out, Tommy Elphick played a lot for us and he was fairly young at the time(i think), he bought a 20/21 year old Elliot Bennett from Wolves reserves and made him a key player, he got a teenaged Chris Wood on loan for most of the season and I don't think Liam Bridcutt was very old either.
He mixed them in with the solid pro's who were already there and a few older players(Kishichev in league 1, Bruno, Upson, Bridge, Vicente in the championship) and made a dynamite team. Or so I'm told. I never got to see them in the flesh.
Most of the players seemed to absolutely love him.
He was a blast at the Seagulls over London meeting I went to, really good at handling social situations like that, and answering direct questions as best he can, he seemed to know how to get the team playing good football and got an average bunch playing very well. He wants as much control of things as he can so I don't see it working well with clubs that employ director of football roles and the like. This all comes at a cost though, he doesn't treat those well who are on the fringes and seems to have the knack of pissing people off. Quite how he went from hero to getting suspended and then fired I still find incredible. In summary, he seems to me to be a good fit for a short to medium-term boost, just don't expect him to still be there in 2 years time!
I was at that meeting and quickly went off him after that. Arrogant and disrespectful.He was a blast at the Seagulls over London meeting I went to, really good at handling social situations like that, and answering direct questions as best he can, he seemed to know how to get the team playing good football and got an average bunch playing very well. He wants as much control of things as he can so I don't see it working well with clubs that employ director of football roles and the like. This all comes at a cost though, he doesn't treat those well who are on the fringes and seems to have the knack of pissing people off. Quite how he went from hero to getting suspended and then fired I still find incredible. In summary, he seems to me to be a good fit for a short to medium-term boost, just don't expect him to still be there in 2 years time!
This is Sunderland. If he is still there in 6 months he will have done well.