Sunderland will experience significant change this summer. A new head coach will shortly arrive, and there will be further player turnover. One guy who has been linked with a move away from Wearside is sporting director Kristjaan Speakman, with Lyon being a possible destination.
Speakman has faced criticism this season for his leadership in recruitment and how we’ve moved one stride forward and potentially more than two steps back. Every setback has resulted in fans expressing their rage towards him on social media, and to a lesser extent, during games.
The discussion about whether we’d be better off without Speakman is interesting. Prior to this season, he had earned a lot of respect from Sunderland fans for putting together a group that eventually brought us out of the third tier and then added to that with a top-six finish in the Championship.
With this data, Speakman is good at what he does. He is frequently chastised for hubris, and the lack of a senior striker in the last three transfer windows might easily be his undoing, but he has done a great deal of good.
Comments made this season about challenging for promotion and having a ‘obsession with advancement’ have bitten Speakman in the posterior and will continue to do so. Losing 21 games with only five victories this calendar year is dismal form, and it’s only a solid start to the season under Tony Mowbray, who has ensured we haven’t been in relegation trouble.
The recruiting of the last three transfer windows has become a source of contention for Speakman, and head coach decisions have not helped him. We were advised that Michael Beale was our primary goal, despite the club’s openness about pursuing Will Still. What followed was possibly the most miserable management tenure this club has seen in some time.
Beale was never going to work out at this club–and happily, this error was corrected within six weeks–but the reality is that it was a six-week period that served to start the fire that engulfed the rest of our season, and why we are hobbling to the finish line in shambolic fashion.
Kristjaan Speakman has done a lot of good for this club, and the majority of the players signed during his tenure have shown promise and contributed to the team. It’s no coincidence that he oversaw successful transfer windows, but that doesn’t justify the massive gaps that have emerged in more recent windows.
Weighing the merits and negatives of Speakman’s work at Sunderland could be difficult, but I honestly believe we will regret moving him on if we do. The foundation of a solid side is there, and Speakman has demonstrated that he can get things right, so perhaps one more summer to correct what went wrong this season is required. I fully expect Speakman to move on and become a success, making us seem foolish once more.
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