Ex-Rangers boss sees Ibrox failing bite him at Sunderland as Black Cats admit 1 area of arrival was overlooked

A Sunderland chief has admitted they overlooked one element of appointing a former Rangers boss - but their Ibrox scouting could have provided some quick answers.

Michael Beale was heralded in some quarters as the brains behind title 55 at Ibrox in 2021, when he was a coach under Steven Gerrard. After building some boss experience at QPR, he became Rangers gaffer in 2022 but lasted less than a year in charge.

He was sacked and his stock amongst the fans had turned from the top shelf to the bottom, with a BBC article highlighting how Beale had lost the fan connection at Rangers. And that same inability to keep fans connected is what Sunderland admit played a part in his tumultous Black Cats spell.

Beale spent nine weeks and 12 games in charge before being sacked last season at Sunderland, the shortest stint in club history. And Director of Football Kristjaan Speakman admits the fan relationship that haunted him at Rangers came back to bite in England.

He told The Second Tier Podcast: “At the time, we felt we made the right decision to change the coach to seek to try and improve some of the areas we wanted to improve.

“There’s so many variables that go into a coach change and a coach’s success, and some of the things went against us on that change. I don’t think we should say we go back and say we shouldn’t have done it, we made it for the right reasons, the outcome was the outcome we wanted to be.

“There were some really good things that happened behind the scenes under that coach’s tenure, but ultimately we weren’t able to get the results on the pitch.