WATCHING your national team compete in a major tournament is the perfect opportunity to forget all about club football.

As you might expect, then, our summers with England, certainly in recent years, has been a lovely little distraction from the day to day rollercoaster of emotions that we have become accustomed to as supporters of Sunderland AFC.

For many reasons, the last World Cup in Qatar was a frustrating one – but mainly because it took place in the middle of the domestic season. While much of the nation was singing about football coming home, we were concerned about what the line-up would look like against Millwall.

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It’s a discombobulating feeling – instead of fully immersing myself in Euro 2024, here I am looking at Marti Cifuentes’ buy-out clause, or considering the list of out-of-work managers, which appears to be getting smaller by the day.

International football should be all about forgetting your club allegiances and each nation uniting behind their homegrown heroes. Yet the idea of sparing a thought for Sunderland during all of that is a bit like that horrible dream you’d get during the school holidays, that the holiday was over and you had to go back to school.

And it’s happening again, as Sunderland’s pursuit of a head coach appointment rumbles on and on. We’re up to something like 119 days now – and I was really hoping it would be done by now.

Other clubs have shown how it can be done, by sacking their manager and replacing them in quick order.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re in the right and Sunderland is in the wrong.

There’s a greater need to get this managerial appointment correct, since mistakes have been made in the past. I get that. But there’s being diligent and thorough in the search, and then there’s being cautious, risk averse and then seeing potential candidates go elsewhere.

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If there is a managerial merry-go-round, Sunderland are holding the coats and bags while everyone else has fun.

While I doubt the club will take into account my own personal desire to get a manager now in to stop distracting fans from Euro 2024, the next best thing is to get a new boss in before the players return to training.

That particular deadline is more achievable, but much, much more important to the club.