Beale arrived on Wearside last December following Tony Mowbray’s departure from the Stadium of Light, but lasted just a dozen matches across all competitions before being relieved of his duties in the North East. The 44-year-old’s stint with Sunderland was characterised by a dip in form on the pitch, as well as widespread fan discontent.
In an interview with The Second Tier podcast, Speakman stopped short of suggesting that he regretted Beale’s appointment, but did admit that the lack of a “connection” between the coach and Sunderland’s fanbase presented an unforeseen issue.
He said: “Look, at the time, we made what we felt was the right decision to change the coach, to seek to try to improve some areas that we wanted to try to improve. Like I said, I think one of the reasons that we’ve managed to navigate from where we were in League One to where we are today is that we’ve always been very reflective. We’re always trying to learn. We have some really, really tough, harsh conversations internally, which I think keeps everybody accountable and also makes sure that we try to keep making improvements.
“There are so many variables that go into a coach change and a coach’s success. Some of the things went against us on that change. And, you know, I don’t believe in saying we should go back and say we shouldn’t have done it. We made the decision for the right reasons. The outcome wasn’t the outcome that we wanted it to be.
“There were some really good things that still happened behind the scenes. There are some things that happened behind the scenes under that coach’s tenure that we’re still doing today under our current coach’s tenure, and we’re doing really, really well. But ultimately, we weren’t able to get the results on the pitch. I think it’s an important piece as well that we didn’t get a connection between our fan base and our coach on that occasion for various reasons. You have to accept that, and then you have to be reflective. You have to be tough on yourself to say maybe we overlooked that element. Maybe we didn’t consider that piece enough.”
Speakman went on to claim that the mistakes made in Beale’s hiring informed the Black Cats when it came to the process of identifying his eventual successor, Regis Le Bris. He said: “As part of the coach recruitment process, I had this, like, matrix around profile and credentials that I was really, really proud of. You know, I sat around afterwards and looked at it – something that I was really proud of, that I thought was really good – and I thought, actually, we need to scrap that. We need to change it, and we need to develop and evolve it. And we did that, and, we needed some time after that coach to be able to review and reflect, and we felt that what we didn’t want to do was make wholesale changes. So we made a decision to run with our assistant coach [Mike Dodds] at the time, who we’ve got a lot of admiration for, and it gave us the time to be able to reflect, breathe, and obviously make better decisions moving forward.”
Speakman also took the time to explain why Sunderland did not rush into appointing a new permanent head coach, and suggested that their patience was ultimately a key factor in ensuring that they were eventually able to land Le Bris. He added: “One of the reasons that we didn’t move straight into making a permanent choice was because we knew that the permanent choices that were our preference at that time weren’t available. And obviously, look, it’s difficult when you get to the back end of the season. There are some people out there that you admire.
“They might think that the Sunderland opportunity is a good opportunity, but likewise, they don’t particularly want to leave their club at that spot, at that moment, and it might not be the right timing. So we just felt that the summer was going to be our opportunity, really, to be able to identify and be able to recruit the right person. And at the minute, that’s obviously borne through, and hopefully that continues.”
