ROY KEANE HIT ME ON THE HEAD AT WEMBLEY TO WELCOME ME
Gus Poyet on the Sunderland shambles, falling out with Ranieri and craving a return to the dugout
Gus Poyet rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders. He has been reminded sunderland are bottom of the Championship and have just appointed their tenth manager in the past nine years.
‘I told you five years ago,’ he says. ‘there is something wrong inside sunderland, I felt that when I was there. It was not logical that so many people can go through a club and things always finish badly.
‘Apparently for them to realise, they need to be in the situation now. that is sad because if you listen to people who care, they are telling you: “If you don’t change things inside the core of the club, this is going nowhere”.
‘Niall Quinn described it as “gremlins” when he was in charge. But when I said there is something wrong, he criticised me. It’s like: “Hello-o-o! Mr Quinn?” When it suits you, it is gremlins.
‘ellis short is not responsible. He is a good chairman. He has been learning and had to rely on football people. sunderland has something unique inside the club, at its core, that hasn’t changed for years.’
Poyet speaks passionately about sunderland but his broadest smiles are reserved for Chelsea.
After joining the club in 1997, he struck bonds that will last a lifetime. He was part of the team that won the FA Cup in 2000 and took pride in seeing Dennis Wise lift the old trophy with his baby son, Henry, in his arms.
‘Wisey was the leader,’ Poyet grins. ‘our families needed each other. I will be watching him in the jungle, eating everything on tV!’
Will Poyet be joining his former team-mate on tV show I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here?
‘No chance,’ he says. ‘It’s for Wisey. I’m happily surprised he’s done it. He needs to forget the cameras are there. especially when you are with all those creepy-crawlies. there will be a few beep-beeps for swearing once Wisey gets going!
‘But for us, he was the perfect leader. He introduced us to the english way. My wake-up call was the Charity shield in my first game when Roy Keane hit me on the head. Welcome to england.’
Poyet celebrated his 50th birthday this month but the energy of the man who charmed fans of Chelsea and tottenham as a player is undiminished by the passing of time. As a chatterbox in the changing room of spanish side Real Zaragoza, he became affectionately known as ‘Radio’.
Poyet’s association with english football makes it surprising to recall he was 29 when he first moved to Chelsea.
He recalled: ‘I was playing with Nayim at Zaragoza. He said: “you have to go but don’t cheat, don’t score with your hand, don’t do this, don’t do that.” It’s a different mentality. But I adapted.
‘With Claudio Ranieri, it was very difficult. My role as training-ground translator was complicating things. I was running around training myself, panting, tired and then he’d stop the session and ask me to translate everything to the players. It lasted for a while but I needed to stop it.’
Poyet was one of those, along with Wise, ushered out by Ranieri and he insists it was ‘personal’.
‘We were powerful and the team weakened a bit, even though they signed people like Juan Veron and Hernan Crespo,’ he said. ‘they didn’t have that Chelsea feeling and that’s why they did not win a trophy with Ranieri, which was surprising. I left Chelsea because of Ranieri. I knew I was not a player he wanted, even if he was not so honest as to say it. I recall the big issue in Chelsea was that I had to make a transfer request.
‘that was all for the outsiders. they didn’t want to say the truth. I knew that me staying would be worse for everybody — for me, for Ranieri, for Chelsea.
‘Why would I be so selfish to stay and kill the season?’
Poyet did, however, retain compassion when Ranieri was sacked by Leicester.
He said: ‘Mourinho left Chelsea after winning the league twice, Ancelotti left after winning the league. the pressure they put on Antonio Conte now is amazing. Leicester is different. It should be ... because nobody can believe what they did. It was sad for football managers.’
As a coach, Poyet worked as an assistant to Wise at Leeds and swindon and also joined Juande Ramos during the spaniard’s time at tottenham.
‘I said to a big spurs fan when we left: “Let’s see when you win the next cup”. It’s been nine years, so it is a credit to Juande he is still the last. the biggest improvement at spurs is they are not selling their best players. oK, Kyle Walker left but Harry Kane and Dele Alli are there. If you start losing them, then there is no chance to win.’
Most recently Poyet managed at Real Betis and in the Chinese super League and has been linked with the vacant job at Rangers.
‘Jealous,’ Poyet says, of those criticising coaches and players who follow the treasure trail. ‘If they offered them the money, they would go. the money in football is crazy. But we are not responsible; we just take advantage.’
Now, however, Poyet craves a dugout return. At sunderland, he kept the team up and elevated Brighton from 20th in League one to fourth in the Championship.
sadly, his time at Brighton is spoiled by the day Crystal Palace discovered human faeces in the away dressing room before a major play-off game. to this day, Poyet does not know the culprit.
‘Incredible,’ he frowns. ‘someone wrote a year ago it might have been the bus driver. It was a very important game and you are dealing with something so stupid.
‘It’s going to be there forever with me. If I knew, I would get the person because that incident has affected my career.
‘It was a lucky poo. It was in their dressing room and they won!’