Ross will not rest until Cats are up
JACK Ross insists Sunderland must be ‘relentless’ in their pursuit of automatic promotion and refuse to settle for anything less.
Ross is not afraid of confronting head-on the expectations which go hand-in-hand with managing a club the size of Sunderland in the third tier and the pressure for an immediate return to the Championship despite the fact he has had to completely overhaul the squad over the summer.
In the longer-term Ross will only consider himself a success if he can steer the club back into the Premier League - but for now the task is to get out of League One.
The Wearsiders headed to Shrewsbury Town this afternoon sitting fifth in the table after 12 games - and with a game in hand over all but one of the sides above them - and while Ross says that is a promising start he will not relax until he achieves his goal.
He said: “We can talk about it being a new group of players and what have you, I think we have done well to change the culture so quickly.
“It is now about taking the next step and being relentless in the pursuit of our goal, not just being satisfied and saying ‘fifth in the league is alright,’ but I don’t think this group of players will settle for that.
“They want to be better and they believe they can be.
“You can become consumed by the league, working out ways to win every week and you know when you get to the point where you are winning every week you will be top of the league because they go hand-in-hand!
“I will not be satisfied until we get there.
“I want to be successful and I don’t just mean bringing stability back to this club, I mean being top of the league and being promoted.
“I probably build the expectation up myself, in terms of setting targets for myself.
“Ultimately, I will only consider my time here as a success if I can get this club back to the level people believe it should be at.
“That might take a while but that is what I will judge myself on.”
In recent years, some previous Sunderland managers have struggled to deal with the demands of the job - but Ross relishes the challenge. He added: “When it comes to expectations and pressure, people have different views on how you should deal with it.
“Some believe you should shelter players from pressure and expectation but I think the opposite - I think you should meet it head on, acknowledging it is there and talking about it.
“I am privileged to have this job, I feel when I am on the touchline at the Stadium of Light with 30,000-plus specatators I carry that expectation and I am happy to do that.
“I would rather that than play it down and try to lower expectations.
“There should be big expectations here.
“I will live or die by them but that is the way it is whether you embrace them or if you try and play them down.”
Ross is also aware he needs to tread a narrow path between breeding confidence within his squad while guarding against complacency.
He went on: “It is striking the right balance with players where they go into every game believing they can win, without feeling they have the right to win just by turning up.
“It is something I have been conscious of from my very early days here.
“Not only that, the one thing I was determined about after that first defeat at Burton Albion last month was that the negativity did not come back.
“There will always be criticism, there will always be debate over what we could have done better.
“I did not want us to fall back into ‘here we go again’ - I never want that to happen.”