“He’s proper” - 1st team coach Andrew Taylor talks up KLD’s positive impact at Sunderland so far

On the latest episode of Undr The Cosh Podcast - hosted by former Sunderland academy graduate Chris Brown, and ex-Cardiff striker Jon Parkin - current SAFC first team coach Andrew Taylor spoke glowingly about the new Sunderland owner, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus.

Taylor - who joined the club under Phil Parkinson as first team coach - was retained by Lee Johnson and has worked as part of his setup since arriving in December.

The former Boro defender took caretaker charge of one first team game, prior to Johnson’s arrival when we played Burton in November, and has seen a lot of change going on around the club during his short spell here so far.

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Speaking to Brown and Parkin about Louis-Dreyfus, Taylor said:

The new owner Kyril has come in and you obviously look at his age and maybe think ‘young lad, loads of money. He’s coming in here to play Championship manager.’

He’s not, he’s proper.

The 34-year old then mentioned that the Louis-Dreyfus family came with a glowing reference from an interesting source - renowned Sunderland hater, Joey Barton.

We played Fleetwood away just before the manager [Parkinson] got sacked and Joey Barton come in, there was rumours of the takeover then.

His Dad [Robert Louis Dreyfus] had an input at Marseille and Joey was there at Marseille, and he was asking us ‘have they took over, have you met them yet?’ and I said no. He told me ‘they were a proper family. They know what they’re doing.’

So we had a bit of information, background information on them, so we thought it could be alright. It’s took it’s time to happen, but now he’s took over he wants to do things properly, he wants to turn Sunderland back into a proper club, a proper Premier League club.

He wants to do it from the bottom, build the foundations and get the academy going again.

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And speaking about how long he felt KLD was in this for, he added:

As far as I’m aware, it’s long-term.

He’s not just coming in thinking we’ll get promoted and promoted and then I’ll sell it. He wants to be proud of the club that he owns.

Already he’s only been in a few weeks, or a month or whatever and there’s already things happening around the training ground that you go ‘bloody hell’.

Just even like cosmetic things, making it tidier. It makes a massive difference. Everybody thinks he’s taking care of his club, a bit of pride. He wants to do it proper.

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