A new managerial candidate has held talks with Sunderland, and is now a ‘strong candidate’.
Sunderland’s search for a new boss rumbles on following the sacking of Tony Mowbray last week.
Will Still appeared to the front-runner before Fabrizio Romano revealed yesterday that a new, unnamed coach was now the Black Cats‘ top target.
And Alan Nixon may well have just named this mystery man; Jimmy Thelin.
The 45-year-old Swede is currently in charge of Allsvenskan side IF Elfsborg and Nixon revealed on his Patreon last night that he’s held talks with Sunderland and is now a ‘strong candidate’.
Nixon also adds that Thelin now has a ‘high’ chance of landing the job at the Stadium of Light and that he could well be in England to watch Sunderland’s game vs Bristol City this weekend.
Who is Jimmy Thelin?
Born in Sweden, Thelin had a fairly lengthy playing career in the lower leagues of Sweden before moving into coaching.
He was a youth coach with his hometown team Jonkopings Sondra IF and later became manager where he spent three years between 2014 and 2017, winning the Swedish second tier title in 2015.
Having been named Elfsborg boss in 2018, Thelin has since guided the club to a string of top four finishes and currently sees his side sitting in 2nd place of the Allsvenskan table.
Could this be a good potential appointment for Sunderland?
The Swedish football model seems to be an attractive one right now.
More and more clubs are poaching managers and talented youngsters from the Swedish top flight, with QPR recently taking Marti Cifuentes from Hammarby and seeing their luck change instantly.
There seems to be a good way of playing football in Sweden and with Elfsborg having been consistently inside the top four under Thelin, it suggests that he’s a very good coach.
And he could well be ideal for the kind of European model that Sunderland appear to be following now, wherein they’re signing players from across the continent using their widespread recruitment team, with a head coach needed to come in and better them and make them a ‘team’ so to say.
Mike Dodds may well feel hard done by after guiding the club to back-to-back victories since Mowbray’s exit, but he leaves the club in a good place for whoever comes in.
And after Romano’s update yesterday which revealed that a new front-runner was emerging instead of Still, and this subsequent update from Nixon, it seems like Thelin may well be this mystery ‘top target’ that Romano spoke of.