Replacing EFL journeymen with burgeoning young talent on a shoestring budget gave a directionless club that was teetering on the brink a clear structure and strategy. After years of financial negligence, mismanagement, and aimless recruitment, we finally had a man who understood the modern game and the requirements needed for progression.

Since his appointment, we’ve both nurtured and bought some prodigious young prospects and now find ourselves sitting on prospective transfer fees easily north of £50 million. There is no doubting the good Speakman has done for this club, it was his nous along with a steely Alex Neil who got us out of League One, and his signings that had us on the cusp of a truly unexpected top flight return at the first time of asking last season.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

Yet, less than a year on from that unforgettable end of season run that had our pocket of the North East loving watching our team again, we find ourselves in that unremarkable bracket of mid-table mediocrity and at somewhat of a crossroads.

Speakman has truly become a polarising figure of late, but what’s gone so catastrophically wring for this once prized asset? Is there any way back for Sunderland’s Sporting Director?

It’s been emphatically emphasised since Uncle Tony’s departure, that Speakman’s control extends far beyond matters of backroom recruitment and into the realms of team selection. It’s evidential that the preferential treatment of the younger players when it comes to minutes on the pitch has forced many of the more experienced heads in the dressing room to head for pastures new.