10 Worst Sunderland Managers Ever
6. Dick Advocaat
Advocaat is another manager who wasn’t at the Stadium of Light for very long. His tenure wasn’t as bad as some of the managers on the list, even though the team’s win percentage under his management suggests otherwise. It was made clear that he was only at the club for a few games to avoid relegation and avoided it, but after he was appointed permanently, it all went bad for him. With only 1 win in the following season, he resigned after 7 months of job on 4 October 2015.
5. Terry Butcher
He was firstly signed as a player by the club but then, two years after his last game for Sunderland, he was announced the manager of the club. He was in charge of the club for almost only 9 months and I think he would surely wish to be remembered as a Sunderland player rather than being remembered as Sunderland manager.
When he joined, the club was close to relegation and his arrival wasn’t really helping the club avoid that. He had a huge transfer budget before the start of the next season but couldn’t make the best out of it. After five successive defeats and a win percentage of only 31.1 %, he was sacked. He is vividly remembered as one of the worst Sunderland managers ever.
4. Lawrie McMenemy
McMenemy joined Sunderland in June 1985 after spending a long time with Southampton. Not many young fans would know how bad his time with the club was but the ones who endured his tenure would surely agree. When they were recently relegated, he joined the club and were looking at a very highly paid new manager McMenemy to win them promotion back. His start was very poor, with the team failing to score in his first five games in charge. They just about avoided relegation in that season.
In the following season, he was about to get the team relegated to the third division but resigned before that, but the team got relegated anyway. Jimmy Tarbuck an English comedian used to say, “Lawrie McMenemy and the Titanic have one thing in common – neither should have left Southampton”.