‘Actions speak louder than words,’ said temporary boss Mike Dodds in the aftermath of Sunderland’s final game of the season when asked for an update on the club’s search for a new head coach.
The problem is, Dodds was speaking 42 days ago. And since then there has been inactivity accompanied by near-total silence.
At least that has been the outside perception because, of course, there has been activity behind the scenes - just of a kind that has seen potential candidates rule themselves out rather than in.
Then last week, amid growing frustration and anger from supporters, the stony silence was finally broken when owner and chairman Kyril Louis-Dreyfus issued a 94-word statement.
So rare are public pronouncements from Louis-Dreyfus that they tend to be treated like Holy Writ, yet in truth the statement offered little beyond a vague ‘hope’ that a head coach would be appointed ‘imminently’ - whatever that means - before going on to trot out the usual platitudes thanking fans for their patience, making a nod towards the club falling short of expectations last season and talking up its ambition for the new season to come.
But, as Dodds could have told him, actions speak louder than words.
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And, a week down the line from Louis-Dreyfus’ statement, still there has been no tangible action. No puff of white smoke emerging from the boardroom.
Over the summer Sunderland fans have seen a lengthy list of names linked with the vacancy with Will Still, Liam Rosenior, Pascal Jansen, Rene Maric and Marti Cifuentes among those touted as contenders at various stages.
The club spent a long time making eyes at Still, only for him to leave Sunderland at the altar as he opted to stay in France and take over at Lens, with his camp rubbing salt into the wound by letting it be known that he had reservations about the playing budget and the make-up of his coaching staff if he had accepted the position on Wearside.
If Still was Plan A, Sunderland are steadily working their way through the alphabet.
Jansen was ruled out of the running last weekend, while former Hull City boss Liam Rosenior has apparently held talks with the hierarchy but is seemingly holding out for the vacant Burnley job.
Look, Sunderland will get a new head coach. A club of Sunderland’s stature, playing in the Championship, backed by crowds of 40,000 at the Stadium of Light, will always be an attractive proposition to coaches in this country and on the continent. But the danger is that the longer the search goes on, the more names are linked, the more coaches rule themselves out, it all starts to look a little desperate.
And when the new man is eventually appointed, he will already seem a little shop-soiled. Not Mr Right but Mr You’ll Do.
Although, in time-honoured tradition, it will not stop the club claiming that he was their first and only choice for the job!
What this episode has done is expose Sunderland’s much-trumpeted ‘careful succession planning’ as nothing more than an illusion. Because the search did not start on May 4 following the conclusion of the club’s Championship campaign. It began on February 19, the day Michael Beale was sacked and Dodds was asked to mind the shop.
The identification of targets, the sounding out of interested parties via their agents, the drawing up of backup plans, had been going on - or should have been going on - for two-and-a-half months by the time Sunderland’s season finally ground to a halt in early May.
Other clubs have been much quicker off the mark.
Since the end of the season Huddersfield Town, Barnsley, Plymouth Argyle, Swindon Town, Norwich City, Barrow, Cheltenham Town, Liverpool, Morecambe, Burton Albion, Birmingham City, have all made managerial or head coach appointments.
By contrast, Sunderland have not so much been dragging their feet as crawling on their belly.
In the meantime, players are stalling on new contracts, there has been no head coach’s voice offering an input into recruitment decisions ahead of the transfer window which opened today, and no new leader to outline a vision that fans can buy into.
In short, there is a vacuum.
Louis-Dreyfus’ statement included the line ‘our aim has always been to ensure that the right candidate is appointed’.
If the right candidate is found, appointed, and hits the ground running when the new season gets underway, all well and good and the wait - frustrating though it has been - will have been worthwhile.
But if Sunderland fans feel the club has gone for the cheap option, or is bounced into a panicky decision with the start of pre-season looming, comes up with another deeply uninspiring appointment such as Beale, or brings in a new head coach who fails to deliver, the reaction will be brutal.
Those running the recruitment process must understand that the stakes could not be higher.
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