David Moyes remains confident he retains the support of Ellis Short, Sunderland’s owner, as he attempts to avoid relegation while also beginning a “long-term rebuild”.
“I’ve been speaking to Ellis, I spoke to him last night, we are in conversation,” said Sunderland’s seventh manager in five years on Friday as his bottom-placed side prepared for Saturday’s game at West Ham United. “This job’s not begun the way I wanted it to but he’s been very sympathetic.”
Although club sources are adamant that suggestions of a Chinese consortium taking over Sunderland are groundless, many of the club’s supporters fear that Short, an American billionaire financier, is losing interest. “I have not sensed that,” Moyes said. “He has never once said anything to me about a takeover. There is a long-term plan here.”
The manager is optimistic of persuading Short to make a significant investment in squad strengthening during January. “I’m due to speak to him about January and we’ll try to get a plan together,” he said. “It will be a key month for us and we are definitely going to have to add players who can give us a bit more to the squad but we need to make sure we are still in the game come January. We’ve got to be in a position to compete.”
This will involve not losing touch with a position of safety before the new year – a process Moyes hopes will begin at West Ham where he will be seeking his first Premier League win since succeeding Sam Allardyce.
There is a school of thought which feels it may be best for Sunderland – who have collected only two points all season – to go down before reinventing themselves in the Championship next season. Moyes is well aware Newcastle United seem reborn after relegation last spring but he also knows Sunderland’s financial situation is much more precarious than that of their wealthy neighbours.
“At this moment I’m only looking to stay in the Premier League,” he said. “There may come a point later on when I have to change my view but at this moment in time I’m only focused on survival. We have still got a period in January, the transfer window, when we can fight to try to do something about it.”
Moyes appreciates the tensions and, sometimes, conflicts of interests in balancing the need to rescue the club with implementing reform. “Everyone wants a quick fix and everybody who has managed here in recent years has been in fire-fighting mode,” he said. “I am fire-fighting too but I have to look at it more long term as well. The plan is to put things in place – like signing young players not just to keep us up but to go on the journey – to take things forward.
“I’m more disappointed than frustrated. My job is to win and I would say my biggest strength is to find a way of winning. If you asked me about my strengths I’d say: ‘Put David Moyes in charge of a team and he will win.’ The hardest thing here is that I have not been able to do that. The players have to take responsibility as well but at the moment I’m scraping around, trying to see if there’s anything I’ve missed.”
