JUST IN: Fan Letters: “Michael Beale has lost the support of the Sunderland fans!”

Dear Roker Report,

I understand that Michael Beale has only been in charge a short time, but I really think the Sunderland board needs to take action, as not only has he lost the support of the fans, he’s shown his petulant side by snubbing one of his own players.

Results since he took over have been inconsistent and not really good enough, and I feel the current situation can’t go on.

I understand that nobody likes to admit to a mistake but I really feel Beale should go and a new head coach appointed before the situation becomes critical and we risk dropping into the relegation zone.

Anthony Catterson.

 

Dear Roker Report,

Well, we knew it would happen, and Birmingham won. I’m not sure where to start with this one but I’ll give it a go.

Jack Clarke did well to score from a Birmingham mistake but then the message from Michael Beale must’ve been ‘don’t pass to Jack’. He was so isolated that he might as well have been in the Arctic.

Anthony Patterson was poor again and should’ve caught the ball instead of palming it out to a Birmingham player who didn’t score initially, but scored from the rebound. The second goal was the same as Leo Hjelde was too easily beaten and Patterson should’ve got to the ball first.

Mason Burstow was anonymous, I don’t think Dan Ballard would’ve received a yellow card if he hadn’t opened his mouth, and Jobe needs a rest.

Romaine Mundle did OK but I’m not sure about Dan Neil and Pierre Ekwah. Beale says he’s going to play Chris Rigg more, but he was invisible to me.

The snub of Trai Hume hasn’t gone unnoticed. It won’t endear him to the Sunderland fans and it showed another disappointing side to our head coach. He says he’ll apologise but I suspect it’s too little too late.

Unfortunately, the only conclusion from this is that Beale is useless and has to go.

Philip Wright

Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Anthony and Philip. Thank you for your letters.

Saturday’s trip to Birmingham was another game that we let slip from a very promising position, and the way in which we approached the second half, with such a passive and tentative style of play, was infuriating and it’s going to put Michael Beale under yet more pressure.

We had them where we wanted at the interval, and the fact that we didn’t push on after the break was criminal, and we’ve only got ourselves to blame for the result.

As for the Beale/Trai Hume handshake snub? I found it quite appalling.

Hume is a top pro who’s given everything for this club, and despite Beale denying it after the game, it was plain to see what happened and it’s created yet another talking point that we could’ve done without. Hume did nothing wrong and didn’t deserve it.

Dear Roker Report,

Yet again another p**s poor performance from Sunderland, and Birmingham were the better of the two poor teams on show .

When Michael Beale can’t even acknowledge one of his own players in Trai Hume, his days must be numbered, and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Kristjaan Speakman sacked Tony Mowbray for Beale.

Well done to Mowbray for what he achieved on Saturday, but hopefully this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, because Beale is a modern-day Howard Wilkinson and he should leave before he does untold damage to our club.

Rob Brown.

Dear Roker Report,

Michael Beale has to go. He hasn’t got a clue how to set up the team or how to improve them as players.

I was hoping that Huddersfield was a one off but it wasn’t. Nazariy Rusyn was probably our best performer that night and he was dropped for someone who’s contributed a grand total of naff all, apart from one fluke header, since he arrived in the summer!

On Saturday, Beale took off our best player in Romaine Mundle for a someone who’s a walking booking in Abdoullah Ba.

Bringing Hemir on for three minutes was a joke, but in those three minutes he progressed further with the ball at his feet than Mason Burstow has all season!

Finally, Beale not shaking Trai Hume’s hand, a player who’s been a standout performer for us all season, was abhorrent and disrespectful.

The lad plays his heart out for us every week and that’s the thanks he’s given?

Beale Out!

Calum Mills

Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Rob and Calum. Thank you for getting in touch.

Quite what was said in the dressing room at half time on Saturday is absolutely baffling, because from a promising position, we seemed to freeze after the break and Birmingham took full advantage.

I wasn’t particularly confident ahead of the game, but Jack Clarke’s goal should’ve set us on the way to victory and after some decent results over the past couple of weeks, we’ve taken a big step backwards, Michael Beale now finds himself under renewed pressure, and deservedly so.

We should’ve kicked on after beating Plymouth last weekend, but some glaring weaknesses in the team and our coaching strategy have been exposed in the last two games, and we suddenly find ourselves staring down the barrel of a pressurised game against Swansea, which will be another key fixture for Beale.

Dear Roker Report,

Thanks your comments, which I totally agree with. All I was saying was we that might need to tweak the model at times, albeit without breaking the bank.

I’ve been to meetings with the club and know it has to be run as a business because that’s effectively what it is.

As always, let’s just try and win the next game, as things can often change quickly in football.

Grahame Anderson

Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Grahame. Thank you for your letter.

I was more than happy to respond to your initial comments about the way the club is being run, and what you say about it being run as a business is spot on.

That’s simply the way of modern football. Business and sporting success can’t be separated nowadays, and Sunderland have clearly recognised this fact in recent years.

Dear Roker Report,

Something’s been bothering me for the past couple of days and I find it good to try and express my feelings, so here we are.

It seems that non-executive director Dave Jones has watched the new season of Sunderland ‘Til I Die and thought he’d try and tug the heartstrings a little more by pandering to the fans.

I was once condemned to a spell in Twitter jail for insulting Jones, but he decided to raise his head above the parapet the other day, claiming that ‘we have to do so much more’ for the vital Sunderland fans.

Quite a reasonable statement, you could say, but my main gripe is where was this attitude when he decided to take on the role for Madrox and do very little to stop them gutting the life out of the club?

Where was this attitude when the club decided to decorate the stadium in our fierce rivals’ black and white colours? I’m not saying it was him, but was it? Either way, where was this ‘get the fans on board’ attitude?

This leads me to the current model.

We watched a very talented midfield get run over, and it’s not a one-time thing, as teams can and do bully us from time to time. It’s taken me longer than usual but I find myself going back to Yann M’Vila.

I won’t harp on about how obvious it is that we need a CDM and that the side could do with a touch of aggression in the middle, but I bring it round to the fans. Why does no model in football include fan satisfaction in it?

Yes, the players we bring in are great and I’m quite excited about Romaine Mundle, but ask literally any fan outside the ground and they’d tell you we could use a CDM, and tell them we’re after M’Vila and you’d see them buzzing.

The same goes for a striker, because we’re not scoring goals.

Why can’t we make more of an effort to please the fans and make them actually want to turn up. I’m all for financial sustainability but would Kieffer Moore put a club like Sunderland on the brink? No.

Jake

Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Jake. Thank you for getting in touch.

I’ve always been slightly mystified about exactly what Dave Jones does on a practical level for Sunderland.

We know he’s a lifelong fan but I’ve long believed that his role at the club is something of a ceremonial one, with no real status or ability to make changes or get things done. I’ve no doubt that he wants us to succeed, but if he can’t influence matters to any great degree, it seems rather pointless to me.

On the issue of the model not being tailored for ‘fan satisfaction’, it’s a tricky one.

In theory, the players we bring in and the football we were playing ought to be enough to keep the fans onside but at the moment, we’re in a real slump and the feel good factor is quite sparse.

Now that the window has closed, winning games is the only way to bring the fans back onside, but with Michael Beale not really winning people over in large numbers and the players looking demotivated and low on confidence, it’s difficult to see a major upturn in our fortunes coming soon.