Sunderland are on the hunt for a new manager after they dismissed Tony Mowbray last night.
The 60-year-old’s tenure came to a dramatic end only days after the Black Cats rescued a point against Millwall.
Sunderland had won only two of their last nine games and had fallen to ninth in the Championship – a win away from the play-offs but also a defeat away from falling down to 15th place.
Tony Mowbray‘s sacking comes only months after the club extended his contract, which he had earned after leading the team to the play-offs at the first time of asking.
Sunderland’s board hadn’t previously been as fond as Mowbray as the fans had though, with reports back in April claiming that they were already looking to replace him with Francesco Farioli.
After a lot of criticism, Sunderland decided against pursuing the Italian, though perhaps they will regret that decision now.
Here is what Francesco Farioli is doing since he was linked with a move to Wearside…
What is Francesco Farioli doing now?
Francesco Farioli had never played professional or semi-professional football before he moved into coaching, instead studying philosophy and sports science at university.
The Italian previously worked with Roberto De Zerbi at Benevento and Sassuolo as a goalkeeping coach, before becoming assistant manager at Alanyaspor. He later joined Fatih Karagumruk and became the youngest football manager in Europe’s professional leagues at 31 years old.
When Farioli was a rumoured target of Sunderland, he had spent around a -year-and-a-half with Turkish club Alanyaspor.
The 34-year-old took Alanyaspor to fifth place in his first campaign, but left the club this summer after dropping down to 15th. He then earned himself a move to Nice, where he has signed the likes of Jeremie Boga, Morgan Sanson and Romain Perraud.
Nice have won eight of their opening 14 games in Ligue 1 and they currently sit in second place, four points behind Paris Saint-Germain. Though the French club did actually beat PSG away from home earlier in the season, as well as Marseille and Monaco.
They have conceded only five goals in 14 matches, picking up a whopping 10 clean sheets already. However, they have also only scored 14 goals – the fifth lowest tally in the league.