i have to disagree about Donald being "hounded out" as you put it. When first he bought into the club ,I'm sure it was all with good intentions but also as a business opportunity to make quite a few million pounds profit, provided he could turn the club around in this short space of time.. He began by bringing in people and mates that he knew from his Eastleigh time he thought could do a good job. In a short space of time, as we now know to our cost, these were no better than the previous "professionals " employed prior to relegation.. Yes, he did manage to bring the fans on side from very early on with the seat replacements but again within a short space of time, with his direct involvement, recruitment strategy, fans began to see just how inexperienced he was. The Grigg situation in the January transfer window of 2019 proved emphatically just how much Donald was unprepared and incapable and so out of his depth as one of the management recruitment team (5 members of which he was one) and showed supporters and staff much of his amateurish approach to running Sunderland. His lack of nous embarrassingly was backed up in the Netfilx series with the January transfer window in particular. Donald's vanity in the pursuit of Grigg was there for all to see and lead the Club to its worst ever league finish.
The appointment of the manager, Jack Ross, I'm very much convinced Donald knew very little of prior to taking control. The January non transfer window is best left alone but it was a bungling fiasco to say the least that haunts us to this day.. After Wembley 1, the wheels began to well and truly come off the bus which is when Donald's & Methven's approach was to begin by berating the fans. We were to find out very quickly just how ill equipped and incapable both the owners were to manage the Club. By Wembley 2 tit was everyone but the owners in the firing line of blame, the fans, players, manager which then beggars belief as to why Jack Ross was retained for the next season..
The clumsy attempts to rectify the following season when those players that everyone knew were needed failed to materialise. The cost cutting and trimming back of staff that had started in the March/April time took on a new emphasis until the firing of Jack Ross. After a half decent start with player who we could all see were not up to the task and probably what Ross did not ask for, the Axe fell. Even at this stage, Donald & Co had a second bite of the cherry to put things right. Alas, they were unequipped and clueless to do so. Ross's replacement Phil Parkinson, THE standout candidate from a long list of third raters..a man who had ,I think, two promotions from League one years ago who was out of work. Donald saw this man as the man to save the day. Cheap and cheerful springs to mind because by this time it was becoming obvious that the owners , who had started out in the summer of 18 ,well intentioned, didn't have a pot to piss in and were by now well offside with a larger growing number of fans. When the question began to be asked about how they funded the purchase of the club and the use of the parachute payments, that had been simmering away for some months, finally came to the fore with Teddy Bears and dummies flying "All ower the place". I'm not going to comment on December 19 with the owner selling/ not selling , RAWA/ Fanzines , the owners trying to control the narrative, the diabolical transfer window that saw us bring players in but we never seen, Covid, the season cards.
I could go on . however, I've decided to end this now because my tea is ready and the wife's in a strop over my rant but to finish... The owners have no one else to blame but themselves. They ware inept and clumsy , ineffectual,unfitted, inadequate, maladroit and useless. The sooner these people leave our doors the better.
