Marin O'Neill To Sunderland??????

Mikk

WC's Sexy Beast

From Sunderland Echo Website:
MARTIN O'NEILL could still be Sunderland's next manager after turning down the chance to take over at Middlesbrough.
Boro chairman Steve Gibson had talks with the former Celtic boss last week, but O'Neill – like ex-England boss Terry Venables before him – has decided the Riverside job is not for him.
That increases the possibility that Niall Quinn, currently in the process of organising a takeover bid at Sunderland, has convinced O'Neill that the Stadium of Light hot-seat is the ideal place to make his return to management.
O'Neill left Celtic in May last year to spend more time with his sick wife, but it is believed he is now ready to return to football.
Boro are offering in the region of £1.75m a year to whoever takes over the reins from England manager-in-waiting Steve McClaren. And chairman Gibson is looking to appoint a British boss, so his next move could be for former Charlton boss Alan Curbishley.
The O'Neill situation, like Quinn's takeover bid, remains very much up in the air.
It has been said that the Irishman, who lives in Buckinghamshire, may have rejected the Boro job because it is too far north. If so, that could rule out Sunderland as his next destination.
But perhaps Quinn has convinced O'Neill that the challenge of reviving Sunderland under a new regime is one that he cannot resist.


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If Quinn does take over then i believe O'Neill to be a very strong candidate.

We probably won't get him but its nice to have someone like him linked with the club.

K Jay

O'neill would build you from the ground up and would be ideal. One thinks he might be holding out a year or two for the UTD job tho.

I had a sig, once.

Mikk

WC's Sexy Beast

I think he doesn't need to go to Utd as they are already established and i think he would prefere a challenge instead of a big club.

And my aunt has said that if O'Neill was to manage up north then it would be with Sunderland as he said it a few years back or so my aunt says.

Tyler Durden

He would be a hell of a "get" if you could get him. From his point of view though, that is one staggering jump down from both the job he was in and from the positions he's been touted for these last six months

Crocker

No offence Mikkster, but I dont see him at Sunderland

The Phantom

Same here... I wouldn't see why he'd take that job. Sunderland should go for Martin Allen unless he's already gone to Tranmere.

Mikk

WC's Sexy Beast

I can see it but only if its with Niall Quinn as owner of Sunderland.

I still believe we are a big enough club to attract a manager like him to us.

If it doesn't happen i won't be too disapointed unless they put a right donkey in charge of us then i'll get pissed off.

Crocker

You are not as big of a club as your fans like to think you are

K Jay

They are not that big but I don't understand why. The promotion from the Championship year (Mikk will have to help me with exact figures here) they averaged about 28,000 fans even last year they averaged 34.000 and back in 1999/2000 they had the third highest behind UTD and UTD (around 43,000). Note as well that seeing as they spent two consecutive seasons in The Championship they would also have recieved the infamous "parachute fund". I don't understand how a club with this sort of following can be in such trouble and spend so little worthwhile money. Look at Middlesborough down the road they have less of a following and despite this year being a good one in europe, are perinially 8-14th in the prem. Yet they see no problme throwing 8 Million on a striker most years (Yakubu and Maccarone) and will pay top dollar to other established players over the years (Eghiog, Sothgate, Hasslebaink, Viduka). Obviously somewhere the money has been skimmed because as I understood it the Stadium only took like 4-5M a year from club coffers. Mind you there is another club that is supported on here that seems to have money problems despite a free stadium that is virtually full each week.

I had a sig, once.

Tyler Durden

That sort of information intimates an extremely poorly run club. Quinn going there and having some money to throw at the club through his, and other, investors account will interest many managers (what with their potential fan base too).

However, O'Neill currently has the sort of godlike reputation that could easily land him the Man United job in a year or two (as with most Ulsterman, I feel this is the one he truly desires) and I just can't see him thinking "I'm going to enhance my reputation even further by going to Sunderland".

At the moment his managerial record is pretty much faultless, which is why he is so highly regarded. To jeopardise that by going to Sunderland, where it would destroy the legend of O'Neill if he didn't comfortably get them promotion in his first season, just seems an uneccesary risk for him. If he's patient he's going to land a huge fish sooner or later.