Barnesy’s Blog: “Sunderland have invested in Michael Beale and they aren’t about to bin him”

In his latest Roker Report blog, BBC Newcastle’s Nick Barnes offers his thoughts on the state of play as the club tries to get things back on an even keel after a bad month

As a huge admirer of Charles Dickens, I thought Michael Beale looked like out of “Oliver Twist.”

 

He is the antithesis of the current pantomime villain—the “Fagin” of 2024

with his mocking accent—vilified and ridiculed by supporters, and it appears

that he is at the epicenter of Sunderland’s most recent footballing

disaster. In fact, “Storm Beale” has not yet passed in this winter storm cycle.

Beale is undeniably in the midst of this current tornado, which was whipped up

with the sacking of Tony Mowbray and then stirred by the derby calamity and the home defeat to Hull City.

 

‘You’re getting sacked in the morning’ sang the fans. Not the Hull fans- the Sunderland fans.

 

Underwhelmed by the 43-year-old from Bromley (not even a Cockney even

though he’s deemed to be so), his bid to try and overwhelm has fallen undeniably flat.

 

His plea following for some objectivity following the Hull defeat has fallen on

seemingly deaf ears. He likes Tony Mowbray and gets on well with him, but

Tony’s moved on, he says, and he’s now the man in charge.

 

He sits in the glare of the TV cameras and journalists and just seems to basically piss the fans off.

 

He doesn’t speak like Lee Johnson and he’s not negative. In fact, he sways perhaps too far towards positivity at a

time when fans’ positivity has been sucked from them over the past month.

 

Their loyalty has been trampled all over, and it’s perhaps no surprise that in the light of the month’s events, they’ve found

their voice in the stands. It’s not being listened to anywhere else, after all.

The one man who is readily targeted is being condemned, even though Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has not yet provided an explanation for what transpired before January 6th, despite the fact that this explanation appears to be on the horizon with the release of the minutes from the fans’ collective meeting.

 

Inequitably? That, of course, depends on your perspective.

 

Is it from the viewpoint of football? From a geographical standpoint, is it right? Does this approach come from the “school of cheap appointments”? or even every one of those viewpoints.

 

Beale has done his best to beg for some tolerance and understanding, but it’s difficult to predict if his requests will be granted until he sees progress on the field.

Interestingly, despite Mowbray’s obvious desire to see some experience in the team and not seemingly being allowed to play the likes of Alex Pritchard, Beale has voiced his desire to see more ‘grey hairs’ in the team and has been playing Pritchard, a player he says he doesn’t want to lose.

 

Music to fans’ ears, surely, but music that doesn’t appear to have struck the right chords yet.

 

If Beale is, as everyone seems to suggest, Kristjaan Speakman’s man, those statements alone seem to suggest otherwise and I’m not sure how all this is going to end.

 

It’s exceptional in my twenty years of covering the club.

 

Steve Bruce’s exit was swift, even if it was undignified and vocal. The axe fell on Paolo di Canio when he basically lost the plot. Gus Poyet pressed all the wrong buttons for owner Ellis Short to the point where his exit was self-engineered and inevitable. That was a clash of personalities.

Although the supporters have become so vocally against Beale that it’s difficult to imagine him surviving, he will have the upper hand against Stoke City.

 

He will be in charge at Middlesbrough if Sunderland wins. If they triumph at Boro, he will be leading against Plymouth Argyle, and so forth. The team isn’t going to bench Beale since it has invested in him.

 

Even if Stoke has improved under Steven Schumacher, the owners would have to consider the club’s positioning if he were to lose to a team that is having difficulty making an impression.

 

Unpopular appointments Simon Grayson and Phil Parkinson were eventually fired when the promotion drive didn’t seem to be progressing as planned.

Though they were only three points out of the playoffs after finishing sixth last season and sixth when Mowbray left, it seems like the wheels are coming off once more.

Grayson, Parkinson and to some extent Johnson were all sacked in less febrile atmospheres, so if this current situation festers, I fear there’ll only be one way out for the club.

It’s fair to say the circus is of the club’s own making.

 

It was preventable and a failure to read the mood has turned out, while not to be catastrophic at the moment, potentially so, as fans become disenfranchised, disillusioned, and unquestionably angry. Indeed, many are already.

 

There was a point during the 2017/2018 season at Ipswich Town when one sensed the season would end with relegation. It was intuitive after watching a performance so broken and desperate, one knew there was only going to be one outcome.

 

Sunderland are now at a crossroads.

 

Performances and results have to improve. There has to be good business

completed in the transfer window and the club has to restore belief in the fans

who, following an underwhelming month and a sense of malaise even in the

light of some positive results, needs resuscitating.

 

Hard times, but the good times aren’t far away if the right decisions are taken in the coming weeks.