
Next Sunderland Manager Odds: Would Julien Sable be a good fit?

Sunderland need a new Head Coach after Tony Mowbray’s dismissal and Julien Sablé is high on the list in the next Sunderland manager odds.
EFL pundit Gab Sutton examines the candidate extensively, before looking at others mooted to be in contention.
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Who Is Julien Sablé?
After dismissing a Head Coach with a solid, consistent and reliable Championship record in Tony Mowbray, appointing Julien Sablé would certainly represent a change of direction for Sunderland.
Although the 43-year-old now has eight years of coaching experience under his belt with Saint-Étienne and Nice, across various roles but primarily as an assistant, he’s a rookie in number one terms.
Sablé has had two stints as interim Head Coach of ASSE, but the first was a run of two points from seven games back in 2017, when he probably wasn’t ready, and the second was for just one game in December 2021 - a 2-0 loss at Reims.
As such, the former midfielder doesn’t have a track record to go off, and obtaining information on his coaching talents is difficult.
Assistants are harder to judge than head coaches to casual observers, and those who do have the inside track are unable to divulge any detail.
Any sort of feel for the prudence of the prospective appointment, therefore, would come down to how much one trusts the chief decision-maker, Kristjaan Speakman.
The only appointments Speakman has made as Sporting Director, though, have been well-known managers in English football: Lee Johnson, Alex Neil, and Mowbray, so his capacity for spotting fresh coaching talent is for now unknown.
However, it would seem the inspiration for Sablé would be the club’s initial reported previous interest in Francesco Farioli, who assisted Roberto de Zerbi at Sassuolo, before becoming a number one, and inspiring Alanyaspor from 8th to 5th in the Süper Lig in 2021-22 after taking charge in December.
Farioli subsequently became Nice boss, and it may be that Sunderland wanted someone cut from similar cloth, with the Italian unlikely to leave the team 2nd in Ligue 1, only four points behind PSG.
Les Aiglons haven’t finished higher than 5th since 2016-17, and while they’ve been able to spend a little more than usual on Terem Moffi and Jérémie Boga, as well as loaning Morgan Sansom from Aston Villa, their position suggests a high quality of coaching.
Nice have built their form on sturdy foundations: they have the best defensive record across Europe’s top five leagues, and have conceded just four goals in open play, and while their OP xGA of 8.09 suggests a drop-off, it’s still the best in Ligue 1 for that metric.
Conversely, they’ve only scored the 10th-most open play goals with 11, but their OP xGF of 14.80 suggests the attacking productivity would improve if, as expected, they can’t quite maintain current defensive standards.
Despite laudable results, there is a criticism they are not great to watch even with a talented squad, and an 87.6% pass completion ratio – 2nd-highest to PSG – would suggest this is down to an occasional lack of urgency rather than wasteful use of the ball.
However, Nice are always aggressive against the ball, and maximize their physicality, while a previous quote from Sablé suggests he’s not a conservative coach.
“Our idea has always been the same: we play every game to win them. We have ambitions in the game, we have desires, principles of play that are very strong. We're going to focus on the content. We're not going to play to protect something, we're going to play to get something. That's our mindset and it's not going to change. We know we'll probably have the ball, we'll need a lot of speed to create goalscoring situations and be very good at counter-pressing.”
Julien Sablé Tactical Focus
The Marseille-born man had a playing reputation for being a dedicated professional with a serious attitude to the game, a blunt leader who earnt the captain’s armband at both Saint-Étienne and Nice, and it seems he’s taken that mentality into coaching.
Sablé is used to coaching a 4-3-3, the formation Nice have played in every game this season, which seems to be what Sunderland want.
The coach would inherit one of the most exciting squads in the Championship, with seven oven-ready top-end Championship performers in Anthony Patterson, Trai Hume, Dan Ballard, Dan Neil, Jobe Bellingham, Jack Clarke and Patrick Roberts, if the latter can rediscover his 2022-23 form.
For the Black Cats to reach the Play-Offs, though, they’ll need to find solutions in the other five positions, as well as keeping the star septet fit, fresh, available – and at the club.
Overlooked by Mowbray, Nectarios Triantis could emerge as the right centre-back partner for Ballard, having arrived with glowing reviews from Australia, with the 20-year-old touted as a potential future Socceroos skipper, and so could Timothée Pembélé when fit.
Left-back Dennis Cirkin might be in the above big-hitter category if he’d stayed injury-free, but his record on that score over the last 18 months hasn’t been great, and while Niall Huggins’ recent form offers some hope, he doesn’t have a huge body of work in senior football.
Another question mark lies over the midfield partner for Neil, with Pierre Ekwah unable to hit the desired heights this term after a promising 2022-23.
From the others, Luke O’Nien has been deemed to be needed alongside Ballard at centre-back, Corry Evans has been injured, Alex Pritchard is short on the defensive qualities required, and Adil Aouchiche may have been perceived as not ready to start regularly, along with homegrown prospect Ellis Taylor.
The other question mark lies up top: Portugal Under-20s prospect Luís Semedo has struggled to make an instant jump from Liga Portugal 2 football with Benfica B to Championship level, understandably, while Mason Burstow has made little impression on loan from Chelsea.
Elsewhere, Eliezer Mayenda and Nazariy Rusyn signed injured, although the latter, unsurprisingly perhaps at 26, has looked the strongest candidate for the position with his persistence, running power and hold-up play, but the goals haven’t come yet.
Overall, the remaining four positions in Sunderland’s starting XI hold the key to their season, and the hope would be that they can recruit for one or two of them, players who can make a short-term impact.
For the others, Sablé would be hoping for a slice of fortune on the injury front, as well as using his developmental qualities, which he nurtured in his work with the B Teams at Saint-Étienne and Nice, to bring a few talents along as well.
Who else is in the mix to manage Sunderland?
Of course, it might not be Sablé arriving at the Stadium of Light, currently one of the favourites with the bookies – although when an obscure name pops up at the top of the betting lists, there tends to be a grain of truth behind the links.
Another short-priced candidate is Steven Schumacher, who has got Plymouth Argyle playing attractive, passing football in the Championship.
After leading Argyle to an 80-point tally in 2021-22, firstly through assisting Ryan Lowe before taking the number one job in November that season, Schuey reacted to the disappointment of somehow missing out on the top six by delivering a 101-point title parade, as they beat Kieran McKenna’s Ipswich to top spot.
Schumacher is a fine developer of talent, and has worked wonders with the likes of Bali Mumba, Finn Azaz and Morgan Whittaker, whilst making his teams efficient as a collective.
Kim Hellberg is also in the list, after the 35-year-old led IFK Värnamo, a modestly-supported Swedish club with a history in the lower leagues, to 5th in the Allsvenskan in 2023.
Another candidate is Rene Maric, currently working at Bayern Munich in a new position responsible for coaching development and playing philosophy.
The 31-year-old already has plenty of coaching experience, assisting Marco Rose at RB Salzburg, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund, as well as Jesse Marsch at Leeds.
There’s also a world in which Mike Dodds gets the job, if the interim period is prolonged enough for him to prove his worth as Head Coach: he’s somebody Speakman knows well from their time working together at Birmingham City’s academy.
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