As I awoke last Saturday morning, I fully expected to read or hear the news that Michael Beale had indeed been relieved of his duties at SAFC. As the day ploughed on with no news, well, to say I was surprised would be an understatement. We’ve experienced this gut feeling plenty of times before, where we feel it is almost inevitable that the managerial axe will fall once again. Bruce. Grayson. Parkinson. I felt it on Friday night; and it certainly hadn’t subsided by dawn. When Sunday came and went without so much of an inkling that the trigger had been pulled, I resigned myself to accepting the situation. Sadly, that is now where I find myself.
I think if the powers that be were about to make another critical decision, one of such importance as firing the head coach, they'd have done it by now. They have shown their ruthlessness in the past when sacking the hugely popular Tony Mowbray, but this time have chosen to stick to their guns and leave Michael Beale in the hot seat that they entrusted him with just a few weeks ago. Just for how much longer remains to be seen. There is yet another huge game on the horizon when Stoke City head to Wearside this coming Saturday. It is one we can ill afford to lose.
It’s a little difficult to sum up exactly how I’m feeling at the moment. I was angry at full time last Friday, along with about 40,000 others. I’d calmed down, slightly, by the end of the following day, I think. Social media seems to be a different kettle of fish altogether, with the #BealeOut hashtag trending for a good 48 hours at the time of writing. I have not seen and heard such universal opinion on a manager, particularly this early into their tenure, as the situation we now find ourselves in as a club. There are those in the minority who feel that Beale deserves more time. That is the beauty of our national game, anyone can have an opinion on it. To be clear on my own stance, I can only reiterate what I said in my last piece; the season can still be salvaged but only if a change in Head Coach is made. Do I want Sunderland to go out and win on Saturday against Stoke? Of course I do, nothing will ever change that, no matter who owns the club or who sits in the dugout on match days.
I have accepted that, for now, Michael Beale is going nowhere. It isn’t something that you or I can control; but that doesn’t mean we can’t still shake our fist at the board and voice our displeasure at the situation that Sunderland AFC finds itself in. The hierarchy have taken a sledgehammer to two years of good work and destroyed it in six weeks. Now they find themselves massively under the microscope. Quite what a home defeat to Stoke at the weekend would do to the situation is anyone's guess.
Beale himself has asked for the fans to back the players. I think that we already are. Our disdain isn’t aimed at them at all. At the moment, every word Beale says is heavily scrutinised. In his interviews and press conferences, he’s struggling to say the right things. In our matches, every decision he makes is also heavily scrutinised. Again, he is struggling to make the right calls. He's struggling to appease the supporters. It’s just not working. We’ve never got going under him. How he said he wanted to play in his first interview, and what we see each Saturday afternoon are two different things entirely. We look passive, slow and bereft of energy. I'm not sure I've seen him do anything of note to change it. That is a real issue for me. Isn't the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
Other supporters, with some validity I might add, will point to the defeats against Huddersfield, Plymouth and Stoke and say, well, what was the difference? It’s a fair point, because in those games under Mowbray we were indeed poor. You will get that across a 46 game season. We played some brilliant, free-flowing football under Mowbray in his time here; both the players and most of the supporters loved him. I just cannot begin to fathom how Michael Beale can get that same output from this squad of players. I simply don’t think he can, and I feel his seven games in charge already shows it. For me, it isn’t too early to judge. We’ve seen plenty of managers here who have failed, and we’re not far away from inking Michael Beale’s name onto that list. If he somehow turns the tide, I will absolutely be the first to hold my hands up and admit I was hasty and wrong.
I have stated on a couple of occasions that Beale needs help in the transfer market. What manager doesn't? Undoubtedly, he'd have received assurances from above that reinforcements will be arriving in this winter window. With just over a week to go to bring in players, there are still no new faces through the door. I'd rather we hung on if it meant getting the right player, but I'm starting to get a little concerned, again. Rabbits have been pulled from hats before; the Aji Alese transfer springs to mind. I think we need a left-back, a holding midfielder with a bit of guile and experience, and of course, Speakman's kryptonite, a striker. One who can go straight into the team.
Even if we can get players in the building before the deadline, MIchael Beale faces a huge task in turning this situation around. I have no doubt that he knows the scale of the unrest and will be feeling the pressure.
I think I have accepted that he is sticking around at Sunderland AFC. For now.
