Nick Barnes says that the door would not be ‘readily-open’ for this 42-year-old to take charge of Sunderland in the summer.
Sunderland sacked Michael Beale earlier in the year and are now poised to appoint another new manager in the summer.
It’ll be the fourth permanent manager that the Sunderland owners have had in place since their return to the Championship in 2022.
Mike Dodds is the man in charge until the end of the season, but he’s now lost his opening four games, with Sunderland losing their last six in the Championship.
The Black Cats have now lost six in a row for the first time since 2006.
Alex Neil linked with Sunderland return
Several names have so far been linked with the Stadium of Light vacancy.
Will Still is said to be Sunderland’s ideal appointment, whilst Steve Cooper has been tipped to come into conversations in the summer.
Elsewhere, Alex Neil has been linked with a return to Sunderland.
The 42-year-old guided Sunderland to promotion from League One in 2022 but left soon after the start of the 2022/23 campaign for Stoke City, where he’s since been sacked.
Speaking on the EFL Debate recently, Neil opened up on his time at on Wearside, revealing that a contract feud was behind his exit.
He said:
“As soon as we got promoted, I wanted to open discussions to extend my stay and get a better deal and to be part of what the club was club going to be moving forward – that’s where I saw my future. The fact is that as far as they were concerned, I’d signed my deal and that’s the deal that I was on. To me, that didn’t show any faith in me or in security in terms of, ‘we want you to the guy to take us forward in the next few years’. That was the key component that drove everything that came after that.”
And commenting on Neil’s comments and a rumoured return to Sunderland, BBC pundit Nick Barnes said:
“He felt that, [after] the Wembley final, the club didn’t give him enough credit, for what he achieved in the short time he was at Sunderland.”
Barnes continued:
“There’s a familiar pattern here, isn’t there? Tony Mowbray, once it was established that they’d probably talked to an Italian coach, that trust was broken, and from then on, Tony Mowbray was in a situation where he’s feeling, I think probably, undervalued as well.”
Finally, Barnes concluded:
“I don’t think, after those comments from Alex Neil, that the door would be readily-open for his return.”
Alex Neil’s managerial record including Stoke City
Neil landed his first managerial job with Hamilton Academical in 2013.
He’s since had spells in charge of Norwich City, Preston North End, Sunderland, and Stoke City, earning promotion from the Championship with Norwich and from League One with the Black Cats.
In 466 games as a manager, Neil has a 41.42% win record, though his last tenure at Stoke was his worst; he was sacked in December with a win record of 33.33%, following 22 wins in 66 games in charge.
Sunderland owners may be earning tough-to-please reputation
This season, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Kristjaan Speakman in particular have been brought under the spotlight.
Their reputation as an owner and sporting director respectively seems to be taking a hit, following a string of poor decisions in terms of managers, and what now seems to be a string of poor investments in the transfer market.
They remain relatively well-liked and popular among fans (Louis-Dreyfus more so than Speakman), but there’s certainly amends to be made.
And they can make those amends in the summer by bringing in a strong coach, like Still perhaps, and then giving whoever the coach is the backing needed in the transfer market.
But there may always be a lingering feeling of, ‘what if Neil never left?’. He was doing well with Sunderland in the Championship and if he stayed on, the stability that would’ve brought might not have Sunderland in this predicament right now.
Neil though may well return to football very soon, but expect him to take a break after a whirlwind year-and-a-half.