Coleman tells Short: We need to talk in summer
BOSS WILL SEEK TO MEET WITH OWNER
Sports writer CHRIS Coleman will seek a face-toface meeting with Ellis Short this summer and ask him to loosen the purse strings - if there is no sign of a change of ownership at Sunderland.
Incredibly, despite having spent more than four months in charge at the Stadium of Light, Coleman and US-based owner Short have yet to speak, the manager dealing only with chief executive Martin Bain who has been left to run the club on a day-to-day basis.
Short is actively seeking a buyer for the club, so far without success, and stories emerged at the beginning of the week former chairman Niall Quinn was involved in a potential bid were incorrect.
While a number of parties have expressed interest in the club, no sale is imminent and that means there is every chance Short (pictured right) will still be in control beyond the summer - by which time the Black Cats could be in League One, if they lose their fight for Championship survival.
When asked a fortnight ago about his own future beyond the end of the season, Coleman said the ownership of the club will be the key issue rather than the division in which the Black Cats are competing.
Whatever the outcome of the relegation battle, if Short is still in control Coleman wants to speak to him to find out if he is willing to ‘come back to the table’ - or, to put it another way, provide cash to fund the rebuilding job which needs to be done on Wearside. Coleman said: “If that (Short remaining in control) is the case I will need to sit down with the chairman and I will do – myself, him and Martin – to see where we go from there. “I am hoping that is not the case, we are all hoping there is going to be change of owner but that (no change) is a possibility - and if that happens I will need to sit down with Ellis and ask if we can have a bit of help in areas. “A little nudge in a certain direction to see if he would be interested in coming back to the table because that is what the club needs.” Asked whether that will need to be a face-toface conversation, he added: “Probably yes. I think so. Sitting down with somebody across a table is always the best way to do business. “If you are delivering news, good, bad, or indifferent, it is always best to do it that way. “It becomes diluted a bit through emails and phone calls and whatever, so across the table is always the best way.” Coleman took over at Sunderland in November and says Bain was open with him about the situation he was walking into. Yet the former Wales manager says he believed the club would be sold before now and that, even if that was not the case, Short would have given him money to spend in the January transfer window to help stave off relegation. Coleman is also honest enough to admit he thought he would have made a bigger impact, even on the squad he inherited. He added: “I knew Ellis wanted to sell and I thought, in all my optimism, we would probably have a buyer by now because this is a great club.
“I thought if we were still in the bottom three in January, maybe we would have more of a punt, to be honest, in terms of bringing players in. None of that happened.
“I also thought I would have had a bigger impact in my own work, which has not really happened – so I look at myself as well.
“I am not telling you anything that, if I had the chance to speak to Ellis, I would not say to him. Everything needs to change here.
“There are big, big, changes needed here and I knew that even before I spoke to Martin.
“He laid it all out for me and I knew what was here.
“We are just hoping and praying it is in the Championship with a new owner, as opposed to anything else or anywhere else.
“We need someone to buy he club with a strategy and a plan.”
Sitting down with somebody across a table is always the best way to do busines Chris Coleman