So much for imminently - Sunderland remain trapped in purgatory

Traditionally, fixture release day marks the moment where a line is drawn under one campaign and the focus shifts to the next.

It is a time for new beginnings.

READ MORE: Sunderland's youngsters who deserve a pre-season opportunity

However bad things might have been before, however low your club may have sunk, a new season brings with it a fresh start, hope, and the tantalising possibility of sunlit uplands ahead.

Yet it does not feel that way on Wearside.

Sunderland remain trapped in purgatory, with the narrative having barely changed since last season spluttered to its miserable end on May 4.

The feelgood factor and sense of excitement that so enthused fans last summer after the club had reached the play-offs on its return to the Championship, is a distant memory.

It has been only 12 months, yet it feels like a lifetime ago.

The speed at which those in charge have squandered all that goodwill, all that trust, all that faith, has been breathtaking.

The club’s cavalier attitude last season - to recruitment, the sacking of Tony Mowbray, the appointment of Michael Beale, the decision to coast for three months under interim boss Mike Dodds while producing relegation form, to say nothing of the unforgivable Black Cats Bar debacle - meant that relations between many fans and the hierarchy have broken down.

It was clear that bridges would have to be rebuilt this summer and the club would have to work very hard to even get a hearing, never mind begin the long, slow process of winning people over.

It has simply not happened.

Former Sunderland head coach Michael Beale (Image: Ian Horrocks)

Announcements about a new online shop, the installation of safe standing at the Stadium of Light, a new PA system, a new pitch, and new floodlights, barely even qualify as bread and circuses.

Instead it is Sunderland’s fruitless search for a new head coach to succeed Beale - a search, incredibly, that is now into its fifth month - which provides a daily reminder of the club’s failings.

The near-total silence that has accompanied that search has only aggravated the situation.

Amidst growing fan disquiet, owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus issued a rare public statement that boldly proclaimed: “We hope to appoint the next head coach of our great club imminently.”

But that was a fortnight ago. So much for ‘imminently’.

If anything, the club’s approach this summer will have only alienated some of the waverers and made the breakdown in relations with some of the most disaffected now irretrievable.

Sunderland had the opportunity to turn the page by bringing in a high-quality head coach early in the summer to add his voice to the discussions around recruitment and to begin planning for the new season.

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An exciting appointment would have given supporters something to look forward to.

Instead those supporters have spent the close-season picking over last season’s shortcomings, their anger building at Sunderland’s seeming inability to find a head coach willing to take the job, and compounded by the worry that the wait will impact on the club’s preparations going into the new campaign.

If Sunderland’s intention this summer was to demonstrate that they have learned lessons from last season, they are failing dismally.