Martin O’Neill was given the position of resurrecting Sunderland’s season after Steve Bruce’s to some extent shock sacking. After seven games and 16 points out of a possible 21 he is well on his way to doing just that. Steve Bruce led Sunderland to 10th in the League last year, their highest position for over 10 years, but Sunderland had failed to build on that for the 2011/2012 season.
A mass overhaul in the summer caused a mix of excitement and confusion for the club’s fans and the latter turned into anger after the new-look side only won two games in the first 14 league games and led to the owners looking for a way out of their demise before it was too late.
In stepped Martin O’Neill, a man who had been out of the game for 16 months and had always been a manager well respected across the country and was once touted for the England job. His first task was to assemble his new team and bring his philosophy of beautiful football back to Sunderland. And with a battle of the bottom match against Blackburn, where better to win over your fans with a hard-fought 2-1 win with an injury time winner. He has managed to utilise squad players that were under-performing, the likes of Bendtner, Sessegnon and his two most surprising breakthroughs being young James McLean and Dong-Won Ji, and has managed to get the best out of them so far, something O’Neill is renowned for doing at all of his past clubs.
Six games later and he has got Sunderland up in 10th place and seemingly unstoppable. These points haven’t been so called easy games either with a win against table toppers Manchester City the stand-out result. But why was Martin O’Neill the man that was going to take Sunderland to the next level?
Martin O’Neill first led Wycombe Wanderers to gaining Football League status, the first time in the club’s history and then kept climbing the leagues to Division two. A spell at Leicester City saw him win the League cup twice which meant they were granted a place in the UEFA Cup each time. He then went on to manage his favourite boyhood club Celtic where, in his first season, he led them to win the domestic treble, the first time the club had done so since 1969.
His achievements at the club he loved kept on coming winning the League title three times, three Scottish Cups, and a League Cup. His last club being Aston Villa in which he led them to three consecutive 6th place finishes in the Premier League before his departure in August 2010. His club record is outstanding and is exactly what Sunderland fans were looking for after a flurry of managers that hadn’t fulfilled fan potential in the past 10 years.
What Sunderland were looking for after the sacking of Steve Bruce was a man that can take the next step for the Football club, a man that can push for European places and get them to stay there. Martin O’Neill ticks all the right boxes and after a magnificent start to his career at Sunderland, which has led him to be named Manager of the Month for December; he is looking at a miraculous recovery for a club that was sitting in the relegation zone for the first half of the season.
Football is known as a game of two halves and after a diabolical first-half Sunderland will be hoping their fast start to the second half will continue and not fade out into full-time.
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