ITHICS Fanzine: Sunderland need a long-term plan & commitment to invest to really move forward

Before the MK Dons game, Rob Mason explained on the radio that this was Sunderland’s best start to a season since 1975. The news was greeted with some surprise.

Apart from a brief run of clean sheets, we’ve not exactly set the division alight.

Still, I thought, perhaps today is the day. It wasn’t. The MK Dons confirmed what we all knew, really, that this is the worst period in the club’s history and this Sunderland team, under current management, is not good enough for promotion.

The whole situation is totally unacceptable.

So, #parkyout? It’s hard to argue for #parkyin.

The man was given one job – promotion. He failed last season. It was a narrow failure, a couple of different results could have seen us finish second last March, but it was failure nevertheless. Eight months on we do not look like promotion contenders, and he does not look like a man with a clue what to do. Is he doing a better job than Jack Ross would have done? It’s hard to make the case for that either.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Getty Images

However, if Parkinson goes, who will replace him?

Which talented managers are queueing up to take over this mess? No-one in their right mind would answer the phone to Stewart Donald and think, yes, I trust this man to back me in January and yes, I can turn this club around.

As long as the present ownership remains in place, we are becalmed, going nowhere. The only consolation is that we can’t get in the Stadium of Light to watch this nonsense.

Will the “takeover” make a difference? Is it actually a takeover, or just another rich boy burning some cash on a toy project? I remain to be convinced.

Show me the long-term plan for the club, the commitment to invest in the club from top to bottom, the appointments of serious people to roles behind the scenes which can rebuild us and I’ll start to feel optimistic.

For now, we just go round and round in circles and I can’t see it changing.