(22 Sep 2013, 9:10 pm)Andreos1 wrote It seems a strange decision to make so early in the season, after letting him invest massively over the summer.

However, how long does the chairman leave it before taking action?

Worst managerial record in the top flight for a manager to have overseen 10 or more games, just pipping Howard Wilkinson.
If Joe Kinnear fancies swapping Tyneside for Wearside, I would happily drive him there myself!

Is that statistic just permanant managers or is caretakers included, when Kevin Ball took the reins from Mick McCarthy he had 10 games in charge...

The win rates are

Kevin Ball 10%
Howard Wilkinson 14.8%
Paolo Di Canio 23%

If you combine there records it is played 48, won 8 with 17% success...

I think it is sad to sack a manager 5 games into a season, but sometimes a chairman must be thinking, cut our losses now and we may have some fight left in us, or leave it till, say, Christmas and lets face it, Sunderland would be down long before then.

Who else has gone, is the backroom staff(apart from Kevin Ball) still in, who will take the job, I would love to see someone like Roberto Mancini who is still on the dole, Marco Van Basten from Heerenveen, Frank Rijkaard or Jurgen Klinssman from America...Names like that may be fantasy right now, but there are no top class English Managers about right now which is sad in itself.

I just hop Ellis Short has pre-empted what looked like a guaranteed relegation, I hope this turns out to be the right decision

Marxista Fozz