As ever, hubris is followed by nemesis.
The Sunderland hierarchy’s breezy pre-Christmas confidence that head coach Tony Mowbray could be shown the door and an easy upgrade installed has this week given way to humiliation and embarrassment following Michael Beale’s sacking after only a dozen games in charge.
One minute Beale was the ‘outstanding candidate’ for the job, and nine weeks later he was out on his ear.
READ MORE: Dan Neil's message to Michael Beale after Sunderland exit
In football circles there was astonishment at the decision to sack Mowbray, raised eyebrows when Beale was appointed, and a growing sense of inevitability surrounding the new man’s departure, even if he was expected to cling on for a while longer so that those in the boardroom could save face.
In a statement, sporting director Kristjaan Speakman spoke of ‘acting decisively’ by removing Beale.
Few would argue against the decision, but the spin was certainly generous - after 12 games, one man’s ‘acting decisively’ is another man’s screeching U-turn, I guess.
As for Sunderland fans, they will not mourn Beale’s departure.
He was seen as an underwhelming pick when he arrived in December and, as he himself acknowledged, only by delivering results could he alter that perception.
But his 12 games at the helm consisted of a tame FA Cup surrender in the Wear-Tyne derby along with a return of just 14 points from a possible 33 in the league - results that served not merely to reinforce fans’ initial view of his appointment, but to revise their opinions downwards - while the sense of brio and panache that characterised the football played by Mowbray’s side also seemed to go into reverse.
The back-to-back away games against relegation-strugglers Huddersfield Town and Birmingham City last week were seen as pivotal and to emerge pointless from those fixtures sealed his fate - with defeat at the hands of Mowbray’s new club at St Andrew’s last weekend proving the final straw.
While everything from his birthplace and accent, to his spiky reaction to fan criticism, and his apparent ‘snub’ of Trai Hume’s proffered handshake at St Andrew’s - albeit Beale insists he did not see the gesture - have been held against him, ultimately it was those on-field failings which were his undoing.
Beale is a decent man but was clearly the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong job,
He has now gone but for Sunderland the question that remains is: what next? Or, more specifically: who next?
Sunderland sporting director Kristjaan Speakman (Image: Ian Horrocks)
For now, it is simply a case of turning the clock back to before Beale’s arrival with Mike Dodds handed the reins on a temporary basis once more.
Back then he held the fort for three games pretty successfully while Sunderland scrambled to find a successor to Mowbray, settling on Beale after failing to lure Will Still away from French side; this time Dodds has been given until the end of the season which is enough time to make his own pitch for the job, although the indications are that the Black Cats are also likely to revisit their interest in Still.
Speakman will once again lead the search although, after failing so spectacularly last time, and with his handling of the last two transfer windows also attracting criticism, he - along with owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus - will be under scrutiny like never before.
Bringing in a head coach and then firing him after 12 games hardly inspires confidence in the ‘process’, nor in the judgement of those running that process.
To give him his due, Speakman headed the recruitment team that has brought in a series of quality young players including Jack Clarke, Dan Ballard, Patrick Roberts, Dennis Cirkin, Jobe Bellingham, and Hume, and for that he deserves credit.
But in December, when he addressed the media to explain Mowbray’s dismissal and to introduce Beale as the club’s new head coach, I asked where the accountability lay if the decision turned out to be the wrong one.
“In our line of work it’s very binary, isn’t it,” came the reply. “You’re either right or wrong. We have a group of people that work collaboratively, but ultimately that accountability is with myself.”
It was a theme he returned to in this week’s statement confirming Beale’s exit, saying ‘we take full accountability’.
What that ‘accountability’ means in practice is a little harder to ascertain.
But it is a fair bet that he cannot afford another mistake.
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Understandably, Michael Beale’s sacking made the headlines on Monday and all this week but before that news arrived came the announcement from Birmingham City that Tony Mowbray would be temporarily stepping away from his role as manager for a number of weeks as he receives treatment for an undisclosed illness.
Mowbray remains a hugely popular figure on Wearside and it is telling that he is held in similarly high regard at all the clubs where he has worked.
I know Sunderland fans will wish him well in his recovery and look forward to seeing him back in the dugout as soon as he is able.
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