'There's rumours' - Sky Sports pundit outlines 'mistake' Sunderland must bounce back from under Regis Le Bris
Sunderland continued their impressive start to life under Regis Le Bris with a 4-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on Sunday
Sky Sports pundit Gareth Ainsworth has claimed that Sunderland made a “mistake” by sacking Tony Mowbray last season, and has urged the club to show patience in new appointment Regis Le Bris.
The Black Cats made it two wins in two Championship outings with a resounding 4-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on Sunday afternoon, taking them up to second in the table at this fledgling stage of the campaign.
Prior to that victory, during Sky Sports’ coverage of the match, the point was made to Ainsworth that Sunderland have not completed an entire season with just one manager at the helm since 2018/19 under Jack Ross. In the period since, the Black Cats appointed Phil Parkinson, Lee Johnson, Alex Neil, the aforementioned Mowbray, and Michael Beale, as well as Mike Dodds on an interim basis, before settling on Le Bris earlier this summer.
And former Wycombe Wanderers boss Ainsworth has questioned the manner in which the club have gone about their managerial process in recent years, as well urging the Black Cats to allow Le Bris the time to properly make his mark on Wearside.
He said: “Stability, success - from the list we’re looking at there, Tony Mowbray brought that, but they did get rid of him and I thought that was a mistake. I thought he brought some stability there.
“There’s rumours about what’s happening behind the scenes, there’s rumours about interference. It’s rife at Sunderland. I’m not surprised that that list of names is up there, and that it’s changed so many times.
“The history of the club and the Premier League days, they feel almost hard done by, the way they went down. They went to the third tier. We had some great battles with them when I was the Wycombe manager, and subsequently they were promoted under Alex Neil at Wembley, and I think that whet the appetite to think, ‘We can go again, we’re this huge team’.
“If you get 40,000 supporters in your stadium week in, week out, you’re expecting to be at the top end of that Championship. There’s all these little factors, but we can’t deny this is a big club and it needs success - but it needs stability. It needs somebody to be given time to do the job properly.”