‘Something of a risky appointment’ – 50-year-old considered as Sunderland managerial candidate: The verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict‘ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Former Nottingham Forest boss Sabri Lamouchi has entered the race to be League One side Sunderland’s next manager, as per a report from The Times.

Lamouchi’s tenure at the City Ground looked bright up until the final day of the 2019/20 season, when a heavy loss for them and a 4-1 win for Swansea City against Reading on the final day of the season turfed them out of the top six in a remarkable fashion.

Things didn’t get much better at the start of the 2020/21 campaign either, losing his opening four league games in charge and being dismissed in October with the East Midlands outfit in the relegation zone.

However, he is being considered as a potential option for the Black Cats alongside the likes of Grant McCann and Roy Keane following Lee Johnson’s sacking last Sunday.

This dismissal followed the Wearside outfit’s 6-0 away loss to Bolton Wanderers the previous day – a defeat that proved to be the breaking point for Kyril Louis-Dreyfus despite only being two points adrift of the automatic promotion zone at this stage.

Will Lamouchi be able to guide the third-tier side to promotion glory? And is this a good appointment for them?

We asked three of our writers at Football League World for their verdict on the latter question.

Toby Wilding

This would feel like something of a risky appointment for Sunderland in all honesty.

Although Lamouchi started his last spell in England with Nottingham Forest well enough, the club were simply unable to maintain that form, and the Frenchman never really managed to turn that