[Football] Sunderland sack Ross.

[Simster]

That "reality" is only your perception.

I hear a lot about CH not making the most of the squad of players he had, but I don't see it. For me, we were a bottom 5 squad for both of those seasons, and he finished near the top of the bottom 5. Many managers would have sunk without a trace with that squad. Take a look back at the horror on here that we didn't sign a striker after promotion, and were going in with Murray as our main man still. The view was generally "if we can stay in touch of survival and sign a striker in January, we may just be ok". We were much more than ok, and he did that without a decent striker being signed in the January, or the following summer, or January. Tell us that in August 2019, and we'd have never believed we were staying up.

Was it pretty? No. Was he out for survival? Yes. But I don't agree that he was given a whole host of great players that he didn't make the best of. Potter has already binned off some off the rubbish CH was having to make a silk purse out of. I don't think time will show that the sum of the parts CH was given were better than merely survival by whatever means necessary.

It's very interesting, this. I agree with pretty much all of that really, but where I think you're being a touch disingenuous is by suggesting Hughton was dealt some crap cards and that this is highlighted by the fact that Potter has discarded them.

That is all true but you neglect to reach the obvious conclusion: Hughton had a hand in the recruitment of those players, and also that his biggest mistake was his lack of trust in the kids, many of whom are clearly quite good. Potter saw this and has given them all a chance. You can't gloss over the fact that Potter has binned off certain moderately expensive signings without also admiring the fact that he has replaced them with academy signings AND got us playing in a way that is frankly a joy to watch.

Hughton was a fabulous manager for us - one of the, maybe THE best we've ever had. But Potter is destined for the very top IMO. Whether or not he ends up being spoken in the same breath here as Mullery #1, Adams #1 or Sir Chris will entirely depend on how long we can keep hold of him. Man Utd would kill for someone of his competency for a start.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

You make it sound like he's being unreasonable, yet you replace one or two words there and that was 70% of our fan base in March.

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

Like the stat in the link:

“Of current teams within the top four tiers of English league football, only Liverpool (1) and Manchester City (6) have lost fewer league games (excl. playoffs) than Sunderland (7) since Jack Ross was appointed.”

So during his time there, he’s arguably been the third most successful manager across all four English leagues. And he still gets sacked!




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Harsh in the extreme l do agree. I will point out however that losing the 3rd least amount of league games doesn't make him the 3rd most successful manager. How many of those games were draws l wonder?, (I haven't bothered checking). Three points for a win remember, only the one for a draw. A big difference.

 

[Gritt23]

It's very interesting, this. I agree with pretty much all of that really, but where I think you're being a touch disingenuous is by suggesting Hughton was dealt some crap cards and that this is highlighted by the fact that Potter has discarded them.

That is all true but you neglect to reach the obvious conclusion: Hughton had a hand in the recruitment of those players, and also that his biggest mistake was his lack of trust in the kids, many of whom are clearly quite good. Potter saw this and has given them all a chance. You can't gloss over the fact that Potter has binned off certain moderately expensive signings without also admiring the fact that he has replaced them with academy signings AND got us playing in a way that is frankly a joy to watch.

Hughton was a fabulous manager for us - one of the, maybe THE best we've ever had. But Potter is destined for the very top IMO. Whether or not he ends up being spoken in the same breath here as Mullery #1, Adams #1 or Sir Chris will entirely depend on how long we can keep hold of him. Man Utd would kill for someone of his competency for a start.

The extent to which he had a hand in recruitment, is something we just cannot get a true hand on from the outside. Generally speaking, I think the higher up the League ladder you go, the less managers are involved, and the more they rely on their Recruitment Team, and ultimately when you reach Real Madrid / Barcelona etc, you have virtually no say, and are just given players and told to make it work. There are exceptions, such as 'Arry who probably insists he must have control or he just won't make the money for his cat to invest for him (or however he explains away the "extras").

But my assumption - and I accept I could be completely wrong - is that we've assembled a Recruitment Team, and the manager probably does little more than tell them the type of player who he wants them to find, and Barber tells them budget they have to work on. Perhaps the manager has the "final say" but when the recruitment net is spread so far and wide there is no way the manager can have much of an input, IMHO.

This is in no way to decry what Potter is doing. The football is beautiful and refreshing.

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

It's very interesting, this. I agree with pretty much all of that really, but where I think you're being a touch disingenuous is by suggesting Hughton was dealt some crap cards and that this is highlighted by the fact that Potter has discarded them.

That is all true but you neglect to reach the obvious conclusion: Hughton had a hand in the recruitment of those players, and also that his biggest mistake was his lack of trust in the kids, many of whom are clearly quite good. Potter saw this and has given them all a chance. You can't gloss over the fact that Potter has binned off certain moderately expensive signings without also admiring the fact that he has replaced them with academy signings AND got us playing in a way that is frankly a joy to watch.

Hughton was a fabulous manager for us - one of the, maybe THE best we've ever had. But Potter is destined for the very top IMO. Whether or not he ends up being spoken in the same breath here as Mullery #1, Adams #1 or Sir Chris will entirely depend on how long we can keep hold of him. Man Utd would kill for someone of his competency for a start.

All very interesting, and a well written post. My worry though, and a big one at that, is that you have come up with all these superlatives about Potter, after ONE good win at the weekend. We have endured far more defeats and negative performances than positive thus far, and sit a lowly 14th in the table.

Let's wait until Christmas, and hopefully get a few more wins under our belt, before getting so enthusiastic. As for Manure poaching him, errr no, there are better, and probably just as important as far as Man U are concerned, higher profile managers around.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Thread getting a tad derailed. On reflection, it seems that it is not obvious whether it was appropriate for Ross to be sacked, and not obvious whether their fans are right or wrong to have been disgruntled with the club's performance thus far. Made me laugh, though.

I can remember Stains binning of Pards after a couple of rum results at the start of a season, and they replaced him with Adkins (pronounced Atkins for maximum annoyance) and went up as 'true' champions (Chesterfield style - in their own minds). The Pards binning seemed a bit odd at the time, as does the Rossxit, but time will tell.

Anyhow....perhaps this might be a great opportunity for the return of Pards to top level management? As an ex Magpie manager he'd be ideal

 

[Simster]

The extent to which he had a hand in recruitment, is something we just cannot get a true hand on from the outside. Generally speaking, I think the higher up the League ladder you go, the less managers are involved, and the more they rely on their Recruitment Team, and ultimately when you reach Real Madrid / Barcelona etc, you have virtually no say, and are just given players and told to make it work. There are exceptions, such as 'Arry who probably insists he must have control or he just won't make the money for his cat to invest for him (or however he explains away the "extras").

But my assumption - and I accept I could be completely wrong - is that we've assembled a Recruitment Team, and the manager probably does little more than tell them the type of player who he wants them to find, and Barber tells them budget they have to work on. Perhaps the manager has the "final say" but when the recruitment net is spread so far and wide there is no way the manager can have much of an input, IMHO.

This is in no way to decry what Potter is doing. The football is beautiful and refreshing.

I largely agree and your assumptions are in line with mine, but I would have to say that having the final say surely constitutes a pretty big input in the recruitment process! Andone and Locadia would both have been sanctioned by Hughton at some point, I'm sure of that.

I think I'm merely taking issue (only to a small extent) with your initial analysis that Hughton was given some crap players and this is proven by the fact that Potter has binned them all off. All perfectly true, except you have to ask why Hughton didn't trust Connelly or Alzate or play with 3 centre backs and two wing backs himself.

And [MENTION=13683]Cowfold Seagull[/MENTION], have we really "endured far more defeats and negative performances than positive thus far"? We've played 3 of the big 6, yet we're mid-table. We've been crap in exactly ONE game this season (Chelsea) and the only games we've really deserved to lose are Chelsea and Man City. We've left 6 points behind against West Ham, Burnley and Newcastle. Even collecting 4 of those would have left us looking in a very handy position.

 

[Gritt23]

I largely agree and your assumptions are in line with mine, but I would have to say that having the final say surely constitutes a pretty big input in the recruitment process! Andone and Locadia would both have been sanctioned by Hughton at some point, I'm sure of that.

I think I'm merely taking issue (only to a small extent) with your initial analysis that Hughton was given some crap players and this is proven by the fact that Potter has binned them all off. All perfectly true, except you have to ask why Hughton didn't trust Connelly or Alzate or play with 3 centre backs and two wing backs himself.

And [MENTION=13683]Cowfold Seagull[/MENTION], have we really "endured far more defeats and negative performances than positive thus far"? We've played 3 of the big 6, yet we're mid-table. We've been crap in exactly ONE game this season (Chelsea) and the only games we've really deserved to lose are Chelsea and Man City. We've left 6 points behind against West Ham, Burnley and Newcastle. Even collecting 4 of those would have left us looking in a very handy position.

Sorry, no, I don't mean to say that Potter binning them off proves they were bad players, more that we won't be able to see the reverse get proved, namely that Potter comes in and suddenly gets a tune out them. I kept hearing that we had loads of talent and it was merely CH who couldn't get them to produce, that it was the system that was stopping them from showing what they could do, and under the new Potter style, we'll see them flourish. Well, we won;t, because he's taken a look and said "nah". Let's see what he gets out of Ali J.

Having said that, I do think they were not good enough in terms of ability or attitude, and that may be CHs fault for signing them, but I just never saw the justification of what I was hearing that we had a squad of talent that CH wasn't making the most of. If we were sat here looking at the same players transformed, as we did when Gus first took over, then fair play. But we won't see that, so we'll never know, other than to look at what these players achieve or not elsewhere, but for my money, I believe we'll look back and say the squad for those two years was a poor Premier League squad, and back-to-back survival with them was getting more than the sum of the parts out of them. "Survival at any cost" with the squad he had, I did think that was the target.

As with Alzate or Connolly .... we'll never know whether they were ready a year ago or not. Connolly would have been 18, and a lot can change in a players development in that time. Having said that, I believe our business model is to invest in the Dev Squad and bring them through rather than ever pay the money the teams in mid-table spend. If that's the plan, I can see why Potter is the choice.