Can we put the pitch-forks away now?


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It's just negativity, it doesn't help. If you want to make things better, do something to make things better.

I do mate. I go to every home game and support them. What else am I meant to do?

Does mine or anyone else’s view on here make a blind bit of difference? If we all had ultra positive posts on this message board would that suddenly make the team win more games?

Or should we be able to discuss things that are staring us straight in the face and comment on them? We all want the club to be the best it can be, but if incompetence at the top is getting in the way I think people should be allowed to express their concerns.
 
The premise of your OP is that because no one should be to blame, that the fans who are critical of the club are in the wrong and we should accept any shite thrown our way?

If multiple bad decisions are made, inclusive of playing staff or management then people again will air those views.

In general we’ve replaced players with worse.

Wyke and Power whilst not being the best were let go and haven’t been adequately replaced. We’re still reliant on Stewart to score all our goals and have only recruited Defoe who’s amassed 9 minutes for Rangers this season. We signed Danny Bath who can’t trap a bag of cement despite us wanting to play out from the back. We have signed far too many loan players, which means another rebuild in the summer should they not join permanently. We sacked the head coach without a replacement lined up, and lost vital points.

The size of our club means we should demand to be the best in this division. Accepting mediocre from those at the top is tragic.
The first part of the sentence is correct, I said no singular person is to blame, after that you e just put a load of words in my mouth I didn’t say.

People can voice displeasure about the state of affairs, that’s normal. Constantly asking for someone to be sacked and making someone the poster child of hate that we can blame is wrong and shouldn’t happen. Im just sick of constantly seeing “I’m not coming back until X has left our club”
 
Nothing personal against Speakman and/or KLD but if they can't get this club out of the third tier after more than a year in charge then they need to leave, nice humans or not.

People really need to broaden time horizons. It is hard for new owners, and managers to turn things round in a year.

You have to give KLD, Speakman and all of next season as well, minimum. It can take 2-3 years or more to really build a new set up.

Otherwise every year you will get new owners and managers and be demanding they are replaced before they have had a chance to improve anything.
 
The first part of the sentence is correct, I said no singular person is to blame, after that you e just put a load of words in my mouth I didn’t say.

People can voice displeasure about the state of affairs, that’s normal. Constantly asking for someone to be sacked and making someone the poster child of hate that we can blame is wrong and shouldn’t happen. Im just sick of constantly seeing “I’m not coming back until X has left our club”

‘I just think we need to move away from the toxic atmosphere and try to support our team.’

So what is the toxic atmosphere if not the fans?

If some one isn’t doing their job right then they should rightly be under pressure to get it sorted.

I’m equally as sick of people making apologies for the club and being accepting of the shit situation we’re in. We should be head and shoulders above every one in this division.
 
We're 4th in a 1 horse race. If you look at stadium, fanbase, academy it's all the best this division has ever seen, and in mid February most of the fanbase will see hanging onto 6th place as a decent job done by Alex Neil, because of the clusterfuck he finds himself in.

We have 3 centre halves after downgrading the position in January, a million attacking midfielders, we've run Stewart into the ground because we have nobody else. We're routinely losing to the worst teams in the league, and getting battered by some mid-table teams. If it wasn't so infuriating it would be funny how badly MK Dons are gonna smack us about on Saturday. We play tippy tappy football out from the goalkeeper but have managed to allow the pitch to resemble a farmers field, rendering it a mistake waiting to happen.

Off the pitch we've had a takeover which has removed the previous lot running the club. Methven is in no position of power, except that he seems to sit with the directors at every away game, and is rumoured to have interviewed potential managers. They can't tell us how much of the club each one owns because of a self-imposed NDA.
 
People really need to broaden time horizons. It is hard for new owners, and managers to turn things round in a year.

You have to give KLD, Speakman and all of next season as well, minimum. It can take 2-3 years or more to really build a new set up.

Otherwise every year you will get new owners and managers and be demanding they are replaced before they have had a chance to improve anything.

The issue is we aren’t building anything.

We’ve just signed a forward who is 39 and a centre half who is 31 and doesn’t fit in with our style of play.

Our other mainstay centre half is on loan, our captain and central midfielder is injury prone and our young promising centre forward is both on loan and again injured.
 
The issue is we aren’t building anything.

We’ve just signed a forward who is 39 and a centre half who is 31 and doesn’t fit in with our style of play.

Our other mainstay centre half is on loan, our captain and central midfielder is injury prone and our young promising centre forward is both on loan and again injured.
Those were panic buys, one of whom fans had been foaming for for ages. It is hard to build in January. Neil needs the summer.
 
People really need to broaden time horizons. It is hard for new owners, and managers to turn things round in a year.

You have to give KLD, Speakman and all of next season as well, minimum. It can take 2-3 years or more to really build a new set up.

Otherwise every year you will get new owners and managers and be demanding they are replaced before they have had a chance to improve anything.
Absolutely not...when you have the most resources to hand and incredible backing it's unacceptable to be struggling in the third tier.
 
Those were panic buys, one of whom fans had been foaming for for ages. It is hard to build in January. Neil needs the summer.

Panic buys isn’t building.

Defoe I’m fine with us signing, so long as we aren’t reliant on him. If Stewart got injured we would be.

Batth was a terrible signing. Flanagan was the better option. It didn’t make any sense.

Regardless of where we finish in May, it would be extremely harsh to lay any of this at Alex Neil’s door.
 
Absolutely not...when you have the most resources to hand and incredible backing it's unacceptable to be struggling in the third tier.
Not sure why you quoted me as I never said it was acceptable. You are absolutely right - after a year or two of proper planning and strategy you will walk the league. Everything has been reset in January 2022, so it will take until end of season 2022-2023 at least to properly see the benefit of AN building a team in the summer. He may need summer 2023 as well as building a whole squad overnight in one summer rarely works.
Panic buys isn’t building.

Correct. Hence my posts. There won’t be any visible building until Summer, but AN will be working with the players behind the scenes and already planning what is needed in the Summer.
 
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People call out when things are blatantly not right. Being left with a couple of fit centre half’s after selling one who’s played the majority of games this season isn’t right.

Having one fit striker with a 39 year old as back up isn’t right.

Sacking a head coach and waiting 2 weeks to appoint the next one isn’t right.

People who moan still love the club and go to matches you know. People are allowed to have an opinion, aren’t they?

yes of course but sometimes that opinion needs to be a bit more positive. I get that we've been kicked in the teeth time after time and have definitely left ourselves short defensively but if there is a constant issue around the club whatever it is perceived to be this can affect the positivity across the whole area/club.

In early Jan everyone was happy with recruitment, people desperate for Defoe to sign etc. Yes we've look shocking last few weeks, are we totally out of promotion running? No. But if we don't maintain the positivity and just simply have a go at the club over and over personally I don't think this is conducive to getting us out of this league.

We have a good manager now and although MK Dons may come too soon I think we will see an upturn once he stamps his authority on the players we have.

We've still got a great squad for this league with plenty of attacking options albeit defensively short so let's not totally write things off yet.
 
Correct. Hence my posts. There won’t be any visible building until Summer, but AN will be working with the players behind the scenes and already planning what is needed in the Summer.

If we were operating a traditional manager model I would agree.

But the whole point of a DOF and HC approach is to prevent having to rebuild every time we make a managerial change.

Of course a head coach will have his own views and want to bring in the odd player here or there. But surely operating as we do, we’re in a position where the manager has the tools he requires.
 
‘I just think we need to move away from the toxic atmosphere and try to support our team.’

So what is the toxic atmosphere if not the fans?

If some one isn’t doing their job right then they should rightly be under pressure to get it sorted.

I’m equally as sick of people making apologies for the club and being accepting of the shit situation we’re in. We should be head and shoulders above every one in this division.

Nothing against you mate but I think this is Sunderland's problem. "We should be head and shoulders above every one in this division". Why?

We have the best fans/attendances outside the Prem but if the club has been ran like a basketcase for years it takes time to put it right. We have no God given right to promotion because of our fans/stadium etc.

I also think the recruitment since we've been in League 1 has been of the same thinking. We're a championship team in waiting. They've not addressed the problem that's staring us in the face - we've never recruited players to win this league. We're thinking too far ahead. With a few additions our team would do well in the Championship in my opinion. We have a midfield full of players who like to play football and would thrive in that league.

But we're not there and have been crying out for strong athletic league one winners to get us of this league for years. We think we're better than League 1. Yes the club's history and fanbase is but the team certainly isn't.

If we don't get up this year we need to rethink this strategy for me. But we also need to, as a fanbase, realise that we are a League 1 team and not a Prem team playing beneath ourselves.
 
yes of course but sometimes that opinion needs to be a bit more positive. I get that we've been kicked in the teeth time after time and have definitely left ourselves short defensively but if there is a constant issue around the club whatever it is perceived to be this can affect the positivity across the whole area/club.

In early Jan everyone was happy with recruitment, people desperate for Defoe to sign etc. Yes we've look shocking last few weeks, are we totally out of promotion running? No. But if we don't maintain the positivity and just simply have a go at the club over and over personally I don't think this is conducive to getting us out of this league.

We have a good manager now and although MK Dons may come too soon I think we will see an upturn once he stamps his authority on the players we have.

We've still got a great squad for this league with plenty of attacking options albeit defensively short so let's not totally write things off yet.

The DOF has only had one proper transfer window (Summer 2021) as Januaries are not good opportunities for long-term signings and building.
 
The DOF has only had one proper transfer window (Summer 2021) as Januaries are not good opportunities for long-term signings and building.

Yeah i agree and trying to make the point that we need to remain positive and we're not guaranteed promotion due to the club size.
 
Why does someone have to be to blame? Sometimes shit just happens.
During our time down we’re we have replaced the clubs owners, manager 3 times and with all their back room staff and the academy’s staff, and all playing staff apart from McGeady and Gooch.
So is it McGeady and Gooches fault? the fans fault? the Kitmans fault? the chef at the academy of lights fault perhaps?

This constant search for a perpetrator just doesn’t help anyone

Shit doesn't just doesn't happen - look at the state of the club, that just didn't happen. If you want to use a 'shit' metaphor, if we are not careful we could soon be in the bowels of the EFL i.e. the 2nd Division - and don't say that's bollox because it is only 6 years since we were in the Premier now we are midway between Man City and Scunthorpe.
'Big clubs' don't usually go through double relegations and if they do they don't hang about down there for 4 or 5 years.
 
I agree to an extent that much of the attention has turned on Speakman very quickly. He has taken the brunt of the frustration for our failures of the last 4 years.

At the same time though, Wigan survived relegation by 1 point last season, signed a load of our cast offs but will be well clear of us once they've played their games in hand.

MK Dons were in League Two when we were relegated but are above us. Blackpool were the biggest basket case in the country for the best part of a decade, we played them in our first season in an almost empty ground as they were protesting against the Oystons but won promotion ahead of us.

Its alright saying the failures of the first couple of years in League One were under a different ownership but they weren't - Methven is still very much involved.
 
Personally I'd have no issues with Speakman running our academy and being heavily involved in talent identification. I'd much prefer Neil having control over the first team squad. Currently, and in his own words Speakman enjoys total autonomy over all footballing matters at safc at all levels.
Pragmatic.. his role is vital in the big scheme of things.. him having total control is the problem.. if they can shift the power to make decisions (Speakman identifies options based on what Neil wants) on player recruitment to Neil then it could be much better.
 
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