CATS GO IN SEARCH OF THE ‘TUCHEL EFFECT’

WITH 16 wins in 29 League games (55 per cent), Lee Johnson didn’t seem a likely candidate for the chop. He’d won an apparently healthy 1.86 points per game. His Sunderland team were in third place in League One and in contention for automatic promotion.

One place ahead of them though lay Wigan with 17 wins from just 25 games (68 per cent) and a goal difference that was plus-9 better. They had 2.2 points per game.

Wigan’s win record was 13 per cent better, their points record was 0.34 better. I suspect that this may be where Lee’s issue sat.

Clearly, Sunderland’s board thought that this was too big a difference based on the resources of their club and the ambitions which they have.

There can be many different issues going on within a club and it is a matter of guesswork to try to understand the machinations within any club.

But, in the end, it is the job of a manager to win games and create a success that puts all of these possible issues into the dark.

Teams at the top of the pile tend not to look towards the manager. Clubs at the top sort out the problems.

I have great sympathy for Lee because

I’m sure that he’ll feel that he was well placed to win promotion with the right work in the coming weeks.

I can also understand that the board will feel that a 6-0 defeat is not the mark of a team on course to build up automatic promotion form and that something needed to change.

Football is a very tough game and it isn’t for the faint-hearted.

It’s about tough calls and we’ll never know now what would have happened if Lee had stayed.

Sunderland are a huge club and they’ve been bold and made a big call. They’ll be hoping that their new manager can have the ‘Tuchel effect’ and inspire a big response.