Sunderland have been urged to hire one ‘incredible’ manager to replace Michael Beale in the summer.
Sunderland parted ways with Michael Beale earlier this week following back-to-back defeats against Huddersfield Town and Birmingham City.
It wasn’t long before names were thrown into the hat left right and centre, however any movement won’t occur until the end of the season.
The Black Cats have already confirmed that Mike Dodds will take on the role as interim head coach for the remainder of the campaign, after picking up six points from three games following Tony Mowbray’s sacking.
Kristjaan Speakman and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus will be on the look out for a new permanent manager until then though and they certainly have plenty of time to come to a decision, so there are no excuses this time.
The likes of Paul Heckingbottom and Will Still have already been mentioned, but journalist Michael Graham has claimed that a pursuit of Steve Cooper is ‘glaringly obvious’.
He wrote on X: “For me, the #SAFC thought process on the new head coach should be who to target if they can’t get Steve Cooper. Think he’s the glaringly obvious best option.”
Steve Cooper has been out of work since he was sacked by Nottingham Forest in December.
The Welshman was appointed manager of Forest when they were bottom of the Championship, having finished just outside the relegation zone the season before.
However, Cooper turned things around at the City Ground and guided the club back to the Premier League after beating Huddersfield in the play-off final.
The 44-year-old managed to keep Forest up last season, but was dismissed with the side sat in 17th place before Christmas.
Who do Sunderland have their eyes on?
Steve Cooper has proven himself as an ‘incredible’ manager in the Championship, having also taken Swansea City to the play-offs in consecutive seasons.
He also managed England U17s to World Cup glory and clearly has an impressive record with younger players.
Cooper would undeniably be one of Sunderland’s best options, though he can probably do better than us given our current position in the table.
Michael Graham also added that the club’s desire to wait until the summer could mean that they are waiting for someone currently in a job – ‘probably Will Still’.
Sunderland were clearly eager to bring in Will Still before Christmas but couldn’t because of the compensation, so perhaps they are now willing to splash the cash this time round.
It will surely be a lot harder to snap him up though, as we are arguably a less attractive proposition than we were back then – especially given that we could lose a number of our biggest stars in the summer.
You would also think that Still is likely to attract more attention from other clubs across Europe at the end of the season, while a strong end to the campaign for Reims could offer him the pick of the bunch.