To Ellis Short - You have a duty of care with this football club... INVEST in a good manager!

A little over a week ago, Martin Bain spoke with local media outlets regarding his role at the club, along with Ellis Short’s continued absence from the public spotlight:

While people have challenged the fact that they haven’t seen spending in the way that they have in the past, there’s some fundamental reasons for that.

It’s not about the owner being disengaged or not caring, he does, its just about doing things differently and readjusting.

And, just a week later we find ourselves back to square one.

Now, I understand that Martin Bain can’t spend too much time explaining our business plans and dealings, but it is incredibly difficult for us fans to understand just what vague terms like “readjustment” really stand for.

I’m not suggesting that Martin Bain is being untruthful, he just seemingly doesn’t grasp the fact that we aren’t all well-versed in the intricate dealings of economics and business.

It’s also difficult to grasp how an owner can be emotionally engaged with a club he seems intent on selling.

After all, this is a business undergoing a readjustment - shouldn’t emotive decisions be avoided at all costs in order to make sure this readjustment is implemented efficiently, or is that merely a myth of the big world of business?

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But even despite the fact that the whole situation surrounding our removed owner feels incredibly frustrating and incomprehensible, we still need Short.

He is like the absent father we revile yet simultaneously long for; we’ve been neglected, but still hope and yearn for the best.

And we need him now more than ever, but not necessarily as some knight in shining armour riding in to save the day.

Instead, we need Short much in the same way that we would hire a plumber to fix a malfunctioning toilet that has done nothing but swirl a bowl full of shit round and round in a seemingly never-ending cycle of circular torment. In an odd turn of events, however, it just so happens that the man we need to help rectify our predicament is also the man who broke the toilet in the first place.

Essentially we need Short to swallow his pride and abandon his readjustment project long enough to fix our current woes, and what’s more - Ellis Short needs this too.

After all, who wants to buy a club languishing in the Championship relegation zone? And who’s going to offer the big bucks for a League One side? Because if Short doesn’t fix this situation, that is exactly where we will find ourselves.

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It’s clear for all to see that Sunderland need to get the next appointment right - this is essentially our last chance saloon (how often have we heard that in the last few years?), and the only men in control of our situation and intended direction are messrs Short and Bain.

However, if they want to continue to treat this club purely as a floundering business - a situation from which Short has made his billions - then they need to wake up and smell the coffee.

This is an incredibly difficult and precarious moment in our club’s history, and if they continue to journey in the wrong direction, their stubborn readjustments could consign us to the wastelands of lower league football for a generation or more.

Ellis Short simply has to come forth and invest money if he wants to see any kind of return on the capital he has ploughed into this club.

Nobody is arguing at Short’s prior involvement, and we aren’t asking him to bankroll a push for the playoffs - we did that in the summer and received a meager sum of cash made available for strengthening the side.

Instead all we can hope is that Short and Bain snap out of their blinkered resistance to investment if only to find a good manager and afford him the opportunity to assemble a side capable of avoiding relegation.

Even if it is just enough to attract a new buyer who will be then tasked with repairing Short’s lasting damage and taking this club forward, money must be invested and ambition must be at the forefront of our managerial search.

Things are tough right now, but Short, Bain and co. simply have to abandon this readjustment phase if we are to move forward from these testing times... for everyone’s sake.