Sbragia returned democracy after shock exit

Apr 24 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

RICKY Sbragia believes Roy Keane will rediscover his Midas touch at Ipswich – but says he had no qualms about ripping up his predecessor’s blueprint for success and returning “democracy” to the players.

Keane might have left five months ago but his return to management still dominated the Sunderland agenda yesterday, overshadowing the Black Cats’ critical relegation clash with West Brom for 24 hours at least.

It brought into sharp contrast the differing approaches of the two men, and the changes that Sbragia has imposed since Keane walked out on Sunderland in December. After consulting the players, they are no longer required to stay in a hotel before home matches and he has also changed the “rigid” training schedule that Keane imposed.

But the biggest difference between the two men is that there has been a return to dressing room democracy under Sbragia, with the players allowed to have a say in most of the major decisions the manager has to make.

“I wanted to give a bit more democracy back to them. I’m a little bit different (from Roy). I feel that players can self-govern in the dressing room,” he said.

“I can’t always be right and if it’s going to affect the players I tend to talk to them about it, I tell them where I’m coming from and ask them for their thoughts.

“I do make the decisions, but after talking to them I’ll decide which way to go and I might consider something they say to me. It needed to change and (getting rid of the hotel stay) was the biggest change we made to what was happening previously. There aren’t drastic changes. I’ve changed a couple of things in training and I’ve also changed a couple of things regarding the hotel situation. We asked the players whether they would prefer to stay in their own bed or a hotel bed and the feedback was that they wanted to stay at home for home games.

“United go away at home, a lot of teams do, but I felt we were away too much in general. When I was a player, I preferred to stay at home for home games and then away when we had to travel. We gave them the choice and they all preferred to stay at home – it saved a few bob as well!”

While Keane’s ethos is not for Sbragia, he retains respect for a man who led Sunderland from the depths of the Championship to the Premier League. He has predicted that the former Sunderland boss will succeed in his mission of returning the East Anglian side to the top flight within one season if he is backed in the transfer market.

Sbragia hopes victory at West Brom on Saturday will prevent an early reunion with his former boss next season – but feels it will be a tough ask.

“West Brom might be bottom of the league but on their day they’re a good side. I watched them against Manchester City last weekend, they played some good football,” he said.

“They play a system that their manager believes in and they can play it really well, it will be a hard game for us.

“We have to go there with the same determination that we have shown in our last two games. I said before the Manchester United game that we had seven cup finals – this is the third one now.” Sunderland have no new injury concerns ahead of the trip to the Hawthorns, with Dean Whitehead back under consideration after another week of training. Kieran Richardson is another who comes into Sbragia’s thinking after a short cameo in the Hull City game.

But defender Nyron Nosworthy will not play again this season after aggravating his hamstring injury in the reserves on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Sbragia has dismissed the midweek link with Albion pair Jonathan Greening and James Morrison.

TONY Mowbray has praised the West Brom fans for their loyal backing despite the Baggies looking doomed to relegation from the Barclays Premier League.

Albion have gone 11 league games without a win. Mowbray said: “I can only praise the supporters. They have been steadfast behind the team all year.”