Five Reasons why Sunderland sacked Tony Mowbray

Sunderland have been criticised by many in the media for sacking Tony Mowbray, but there are good reasons for it.

SAFC Highlights | Dec 8, 2023

Five Reasons why Sunderland sacked Tony Mowbray /

With Sunderland only three points off the play-offs and developing a young squad, it might have seemed harsh that Tony Mowbray was sacked after a draw away to Millwall last weekend.

However, there are reasons behind the club’s actions and it gives us an answer to the question about how ambitious owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus is.

I, like many, really liked Tony. He was honest, decent and tried to do what he thought was best.

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During his tenure I saw some of the best football I’ve seen Sunderland play in my lifetime. There was the wonder of that away game at night to Reading, the drama of the final away day to Preston last season and the tactical demolition of Southampton; all wonderful stuff.

But the truth is he was hired in something of a hurry and in a moment of need by the club. He was never their long term goal; he doesn’t fit the model if you like.

So we saw rumour that the club were looking at younger, newer managers in the off season, but Mowbray stayed. Yet as each recent week passed and another result slipped, Mowbray increasingly cut a figure of a dead man walking as we all wondered how ambitious our board was.

Well, earlier this week they let us know how ambitious, by relieving Tony Mowbray and Mark Venus of their jobs, and if the club are serious about wanting to be promoted this season they probably had to do so.

Sunderland on current trajectory were not going to make the play-offs and it was hard to see where the improvement was going to come from.

There was no alternative gameplan and much of the divisional opposition seemed to have us somewhat sussed.

There were fundamental reasons for the stall in results and the seeming underperformance in results from what we all recognise is a talented squad.

So take a look at this video for five reasons that did it for Tony and see ‘What went wrong for Mowbray’.

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