'Sunderland is an attractive club for anyone,' says former boss Simon Grayson

Despite his struggles in the north east, Simon Grayson has exclusively told Sunderland Nations he has no regrets over taking Black Cats top job.

Simon Grayson says he has no regrets about taking the Sunderland job, saying: ‘It's an attractive football club for anybody.’

Grayson had an unsuccessful short spell in charge on Wearside in 2017 as he found himself caught up in what was a terminal decline at the club at that time.

He quit a good job at Preston to come to Sunderland, but he walked into a club that had practically no money to spend and was crippled by what he described as a ‘toxic’ culture within the squad.

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However, he still holds the club in very high regard and he is confident it’s only a matter of time before it is returned to the Premier League.

Asked by Sunderland Nation via Instant Casinos if he had any regrets about taking the Sunderland job, Grayson said: “No. It's still an attractive football club for anybody to want to go manage, hence why I went.

“I always come with the line of, you can only regret the things that you don't do. And I had an unbelievable squad relationship at Preston.

“The players I brought in and developed and who then went on to be sold for great deals of money.

“That was a massive football club in my time as a coach, manager, but [Sunderland] was too good an opportunity. The only regret I would have had is if somebody else had taken over and I hadn't and got them back to the Premier League.

“I wanted to be a Premier League manager and I felt at the time that Sunderland was going to give me a better job opportunity to do that rather than Preston.

“That wasn't disrespectful to Preston because it's a wonderful football club. I'd previously turned down two jobs when I was Leeds manager to work in the Premier League because I wanted to fulfil that with Leeds and unfortunately that never fulfilled.

“But I wanted to see if I could do it with Sunderland. Somebody will take Sunderland back to the Premier League at some point.

“Who knows who it will be, when it will be, but at some point in many years or current years to come, somebody will take Sunderland back to the Premier League and it'd be interesting to see when and who it is.”

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