So I was pleasantly surprised to find Sunderland til I die on Netflix in the US today. And then even more pleasantly surprised to discover how great it is. Just finished bingeing the first four episodes.
And while it's possible that things change in the last couple of episodes.....so far I think my take is a little different from others on here.
I actually think Charlie comes across pretty well. I mean he comes across as a bit of a t**t, obviously (after the best part of two decades sparring with him on here, and Yellowsforums' predecessors, I would never have expected anything else) - buuuuut he was going in to take over a failing business, with a staff who were clearly unmotivated and disinterested. He immediately identified that the whole culture of the club needed to change, and decided some brutal honesty, some effing and blinding and banging of heads was the quickest way to see who at the club had potential to make that change and who was a lost cause. Clearly didn't make him popular, and clearly didn't make him look good on TV.....but I think the logic was sound, and although it may not have worked at Sunderland, I've seen entrepreneurs have success like that elsewhere.
But Stewart came across as a bit of a naive fool. On transfer deadline day, his manager told him that Grigg wasn't worth more than 1.25m and not to pay more than that; his director of football operations told him that Grigg wasn't worth more than 1.25m and not to pay more than that (and by the way, Richard Hill came across as the one who understood the game better than anyone else at the club).....but he went ahead and made the decision, when clearly exhausted and a bit frantic, to shell out 3m for him. It was an emotional decision born out of a desperation not to disappoint the fans, and not to fail in their promotion push.
But chairmen should never, ever be overruling their football people on football decisions. Because they're just fans and know no more about the game than the rest of us on here.
And so he completely wasted three million pounds to achieve absolutely nothing - money that they could have really used last summer. And this is a matter of weeks after he wouldn't push the boat out to keep Maja who was the only thing keeping them up near the top of the table at that point (and yeah, maybe that was always a lost cause - but I bet if they'd sent much of that 3 million his way, it would've turned the guy's head!). It was dumb, dumb, dumb.
Final thought - I always disliked Luke O'Nien (probably because he was a bit cocky, played for Wycombe and has had a couple of good games against us). I quite like him now. I know the filmmakers clearly set him up to be the sympathetic player, but he still came across as a smart kid and a decent bloke......
