Coleman to call upon Wales experiences
Chris Coleman says he will waste no time putting his own stamp on Sunderland after the lessons he learned from six hugely successful years in charge of Wales.
Coleman struggled in the early parts of his time as boss of the national side and says that experience taught him more than the dizzying run to the semi-finals of Euro 2016.
His message came just a day after warning his players. ‘you’re in or you’re out’.
Coleman said: “Yes, definitely [lessons learned]. The situation was much different because of what happened with Gary Speed and stepping in after that.
“Normally when you get a job with club or country it is normally when a manager is sacked or has left. This was completely different. I was not in a great place for 12 months.
“But the mistakes then were that I did not go in and do exactly what I wanted at the start. It took a bit of time but that is not going to happen here. I
“If it does not happen for me in six or 12 months, I am not going to make that excuse again. I am going to do it as I see it.
“And if the results do not come, then they do not come and I will have to shake hands with Martin and say “sorry, it is not working,” so I will do it exactly as I see fit.
“The experience with Wales, what I will use here, won’t be about qualifying for major tournaments more about the first 12 or 18 months I had there and that experience will see me through.
“Because where we are right now, we’re in a tough position.”
Coleman picks up a squad low on morale and struggling to pick up results.
The new Sunderland boss insists his success with Wales was about far more than the individual ability of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey and wants the same leadership and clarity that he had with Wales in his new team of players.
He said: “When we talk about Wales people always mention Gareth Bale, Joe Allen, Aaron Ramsey but since the quarter-final in that tournament we’ve had those three players on the pitch three times.
“We couldn’t get those three players on the pitch together.
“People say it was all Bale, all Ramsey, but it wasn’t. They were great, great players but we had a group of committed players who knew the structure, knew the gameplan and just tried to execute it.
“That’s what we created. They knew the gameplan and that’s what we’ve got to create here.
“It’s a different challenge because international football’s different but the need to build a functioning team is the same.
“Everyone’s got roles and responsibilities and the biggest word, it’s a dirty word – no one likes to use it, is accountability. I’m accountable, Martin’s accountable, everyone’s accountable. Every player on a contract at this club is accountable.
“You can sometimes look and give someone the benefit of the doubt but there are other things you look at and say it’s not acceptable.
“That’s the way I want to run this football club and once we start going down that road I think we will be on good ground.