The Football League has become a graveyard for former top flight giants, stumbling aimlessly through the lesser tiers of English football hoping to eventually come across a route back to the Premier League.
After endless years of great escapes and a mathematically confirmed bottom-place finish this season, predicting the same fate for Sunderland, a club currently rotten to the core, is more than understandable or logical – it’s almost obligatory.
If Sunderland’s relegation was heartbreaking in its inevitability, the sound coming out of the club hasn’t done much to heal such cardiac wounds. The owner wants to sell the club, key players Jermain Defoe and Jordan Pickford look set to leave, and although David Moyes has insisted he will remain on Wearside, the tone of such declarations hasn’t been particularly convincing. The Scot’s acted as if he’s being kept at the Stadium of Light almost against his will.
Yet, there is an increasingly popular process in gardening of using wood ash to fertilise soil, and that is how Sunderland must approach this new stage in the club’s history; eradicate the old to breed life into the new. As much as the Black Cats’ exit from the top flight with the most submissive of whimpers is disappointing, it’s also an opportunity to rebuild a club that has become detrimentally dependant on giving bumper contracts to mercenary has-beens to preserve their Premier League status. In a way, dropping into the Championship has relieved them of those increasingly short-termist obligations.
Furthermore, although they may be hard to notice amid all the doom and gloom, some of the building blocks are already in place, starting with Moyes. His fall from grace since being appointed Manchester United boss has been remarkable but the Scot is still a talented manager and proved what he can do when given time, patience and investment during his decade at Everton, re-establishing the club as a top-six force after several years in the wilderness.
That’s not to say Moyes can complete the same transformation at Sunderland, and tactically he’s perhaps a little ordinary when compared to the huge influx of foreign managers with exotic ideas. But Moyes knows how to build a club, a philosophy and a team. And for any misgivings he’s shown this season, he’s one of football’s good guys; he works for the long-term benefits of his clubs, not for the sake of his own career. Give him time, and Moyes will forge something good at the Stadium of Light, something far better, healthier and more financially viable than the mess he inherited last summer.
Of course, the biggest challenge Moyes now faces is essentially creating a new team from scratch that can be competitive in the Championship, the Scot reportedly doubting whether his current cohort would be capable of such a challenge. Yet, if Sunderland aren’t to fall into the same traps that have lead to their inevitable relegation this season, the squad must be built from the ground up with young players. If there’s one area where Moyes has succeeded this season, it’s blooding in potential future Black Cats stars.
Indeed, Duncan Watmore, Lynden Gooch and George Honeyman have all featured this season after progressing through the academy ranks, whilst youthful duo Paddy McNair and Donald Love were brought in from Manchester United. Even club-record signing Didier N’dong is just 22 years of age.
Admittedly, they struggled to make their mark in the Premier League, but that’s not something young players should be blamed for – their more senior team-mates should be pulling them through. Likewise, they may not look quite as out of place in the Championship and the longer young players are kept together, the more they start to resemble a true team. Just look at how Mauricio Pochettino has forged one out of so many youngsters at Tottenham. It also begins to create a playing identity within the club, something Sunderland have painfully lacked throughout the last five years amid so many changes in playing and management personnel.
No doubt, if Moyes is to truly revolutionise his team in time for next season, Sunderland will have to make some impressively shrewd moves in the transfer market – a difficult challenge when the owner seems reluctant to further invest in a club he’s actively looking to sell. The Scot was given beans and asked to find a giant in January, but the difference this time is that he’ll be able to cash in on valued commodities.
Pickford is the most obvious, with a whole host of Premier League clubs likely to be interested in his services, but sales of team-mates Fabio Borini, Jack Rodwell, Lamine Kone and Wahbi Khazri should add decent sums to Moyes’ transfer kitty too. Likewise, with six players out of contract and three returning to their parent clubs, Moyes should be left with a huge salary surplus and the freedom to restructure the club’s wage budget. He’ll also be luxury to the first set of parachute payments.
Of course, much of this is dependent on how much control Moyes is given over such matters, but if Ellis Short wants to protect his investment and make the club more appealing to potential buyers, he’ll treat the 54-year-old like a manager rather than simply a head coach. Moyes can be trusted to make the right decisions, especially at Championship level, and showed at Everton how he can build up clubs to create stability.
Perhaps Sunderland won’t return to the Premier League at the first time of asking, but more important than facing top flight powerhouses week-in-week-out is making the club something the fans, the players and potential future signings can truly buy into. Sunderland have fallen into the trap of attracting players with big wages because of their location; now the slate has been wiped clean, they can focus on signing players who will feel truly invested in the club and who will feel they owe something to it. That is where identity stems from, and that is what convinces outsiders to join the revolution.
The most important element in that, however, is patience. In the modern game, fans grow disillusioned incredibly easily, especially when they’re used to top flight football. But give Moyes three years, allow him full autonomy over transfers and the wage budget, and he’ll rebuild Sunderland into a proper club, no longer held at ransom by ageing high-earners, with it’s own philosophy. It will take time, but it will make Sunderland so much stronger in the long-run.
Relegation is inevitably heartbreaking, but for Sunderland needing revolution, it’s a blessing in disguise – the opportunity to start doing things in the right way.