Former Sunderland boss Gus Poyet was taken aback by one player shortly after he started his tenure on Wearside.
Sunderland appointed Uruguayan coach Gus Poyet in October 2013, taking over from former boss Paolo DI Canio.
After Di Canio’s tenure was cut short after a run of questionable results and the clear division in the dressing room, Poyet had a mammoth task of steering Sunderland away from relegation.
The Uruguayan’s impact was near-instant after notching a win against Newcastle United in his second game as Sunderland boss, and whilst the Black Cats continued to struggle at times, they completed a miracle comeback from almost certain relegation after notching 12 points in their last 15 games, all of which somehow eclipsed their previously fabulous achievement of reaching the League Cup final, where they lost to Manchester City.
Early on, Poyet had to right the wrongs that Di Canio had put in place, including the return of one previously exiled man that the former Sunderland boss once described as ‘incredible’.
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Gus Poyet on the ‘incredible’ Phil Bardsley after Paolo Di Canio exile at Sunderland
Phil Bardsley, Sunderland’s former right-back, was one of a handful of players who struggled to get a look-in during Di Canio’s short tenure as Black Cats boss.
However, when Poyet arrived on the scene, it was clear that he wanted to work on a blank canvas as Sunderland boss, which meant giving these players another chance to impress.
One of these was Bardsley, and Poyet once admitted that he was immediately blown away by the defender.
Speaking to What The Falk in 2020, Poyet said: “To be honest, I mean Phil [Bardsley] came into the team in an incredible way. I mean he was the first one putting a tackle in, the first one showing how much he cared, the first one who was worried about the situation and it was difficult for me to understand why.
“I think the good thing about football is not right or wrong you can have a barrier apart from the players and it can be wrong in that particular situation or you can be very very close to the players, and that can be wrong as well, you need a certain distance.”
What Paolo Di Canio said about Phil Bardsley and annexed teammate
During his tenure at the club, Di Canio looked to limit the game time of Bardsley, as well as longstanding Sunderland player Lee Cattermole, who suffered with injuries in the 2012/13 season
Cattermole and Bardsley were described by Di Canio as ‘the most unprofessional players I ever worked with’, quite the bold choice of words for two prominent members of the squad.
On top of the exclusion that, after his informal dismissal from the club, he described as ‘no surprise’ that they were ‘kicked out’, he said: “The reason Sunderland stayed up at the end of last season was because Cattermole was injured and Bardsley played very little.”
Thankfully, DI Canio’s successor, Poyet, gave the pair a chance, and it certainly made a difference, with both players playing a prominent role in Sunderland’s great survival.