Michael Beale claims he was 'really hurt' by Sunderland fans' rejection

Sunderland and Michael Beale had a toxic and ill-advised liaison last season, and he says he felt he never got a fair chance from supporters.

Michael Beale - Sunderland job 'hurt' /

Michael Beale has said he was ‘really hurt’ by Sunderland fans rejecting him, although he believes they were more upset at losing Tony Mowbray that appointing him.

Beale has a disastrous couple of months at Sunderland last season, with him overseeing a dramatic decline in the quality of football whilst also antagonising supporters almost every time he opened his mouth.

His stay turned out to be a very short one, with him sacked after a 2-1 defeat to Birmingham City, who were ironically managed by Mowbray.

Beale, though, believes fans were not necessarily against him coming to the club, they were just very against Mowbray leaving it.

“From the moment I got in, it was clear that the fans were not aligned with the decision of letting Tony Mowbray go,” Beale said in an interview on Christie Scanlon’s YouTube channel.

“They really liked Tony Mowbray, so when I came in it was difficult. If I’m honest, it’s the only club where I’ve not enjoyed working. I think everybody that was involved in it went into it with the right intentions, but it wasn’t the right fit.

“I was a bit perplexed coming in from the outside because the people that made the decision to bring me in, they were very keen for me to come in. I went in with all the intentions of working with the staff they had there but to bring in one of my own as well.

“I’ve learnt a lot from that experience. It hurt that one. That’s the only one that really hurt, because there’s only so much one person could do in eight weeks. There were some things I could have done better, but the environment that I went into in terms of the fans being unhappy, it was difficult.

"It’s not how you would want to go into a football club for sure and the eight weeks is short. But at the same time, I still think it was best for all parties that we didn’t prolong it because I'm not sure things would have gone the way anybody wanted.”

Beale is, of course, rewriting history to a large degree. You would expect it given he has a reputation to rebuild, but he won’t be fooling anyone within the Sunderland support with this nonsense.

There was some initial sadness at Mowbray going, although there was also a large section of the fanbase who believed it was necessary. It was just a shame.

There was also a large degree of excitement at who may come in to replace him, though, and it was a huge disappointment when it turned out to Beale.

Ultimately, though, it was what Beale did at Sunderland that made him such a massively unpopular figure. The quality of football dropped off a cliff immediately, with the performance in his first game in charge so bad that he had to apologise to supporters afterwards.

He also oversaw an embarrassing capitulation in a derby to Newcastle, went on a remarkable offensive against fans in a press conference, and then publicly refused to shake the hand of Trai Hume after subbing him in the Birmingham defeat.

Beale is right in saying it was just a bad fit. The frustration for fans was that they knew before anyone else did, mainly because it was SO obvious, and it certainly wasn’t the Sunderland supporters who were responsible for how it turned out.