Two clear Sunderland manager conclusions as Black Cats bosses get what they wanted and decision made with something crucial

Sunderland manager latest and what happens next after West Brom win
IT was a win that not only lifted Sunderland back into the Championship’s top six but provided the club’s decision makers with something crucial and craved: time.

The message coming out of the club at the back end of last week was that Sunderland’s bosses wouldn’t be rushed into making a head coach appointment. That’s not to say they’ll be dragging their heels but the priority since the process to identify and appoint Tony Mowbray’s successor got underway last Monday has been making the right call rather than a quick one.

That’s the way it should be and yet, as is always the case in football, results flex their muscles and ultimately determine what happens and when.

For all Sunderland’s chiefs are adamant they wouldn’t be rushed, had the team lost convincingly to West Brom on Saturday and if a negative result against the Baggies was followed up by a defeat against Leeds United – which, to be perfectly honest wasn’t absolutely out of the question given recent form and with the uncertainty of not knowing how the players would react to Mowbray’s exit – there’s no getting away from the fact there’d have been pressure on a swift conclusion to the manager search.

Not because Sunderland are desperately in need of points or searching for a saviour in a scrap for survival as is so often the case when there’s a change in the dugout. But because this campaign is very much alive and even if Mike Dodds talks about the focus inside the club being on the “process rather than the outcome”, supporters need to be on side and don’t want to feel momentum or an opportunity slipping away.

For the Black Cats, there were two clear conclusions to be drawn from Saturday’s win. Firstly, the performance will back-up Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Kristjaan Speakman’s belief that the side is in good hands with Dodds in interim charge. And secondly – and this is nothing we didn’t know before the game – this is a rare and unique Championship opportunity for potential head coach candidates. It isn’t a battle at the bottom and there aren’t a long list of issues to be addressed. Instead, it’s a young, exciting group of players who have shown they can handle themselves against anyone in this division and are absolutely in contention for another top six finish.

That’s credit to those who decided on the vision and who identified and signed the young players, but also to Mowbray for his outstanding work during his time in charge. It was Mowbray – and his coaching team, including Dodds – who nurtured Pierre Ekwah and turned potential into a dominant midfield force. Ekwah was excellent against West Brom. The former boss brought the very best out of Jack Clarke, and used his experience of working with young players to impressively aid the progression of Anthony Patterson, Dan Ballard, Dan Neil, Trai Hume, Niall Huggins. You could go on.

What – and who – comes next? As Dodds said himself in his press conference last Friday, this is a “hugely attractive and exciting” opportunity. Is Dodds himself a candidate? The question would have to be asked if he was to oversee a victory against Leeds United on Tuesday.