Advertisement

GUS POYET - I sympathise with Brendan Rodgers as I know what it’s like to be sacked

Gus Poyet explains exactly what it is like to be sacked as a football manager, and expresses sympathy for Brendan Rodgers after he lost his job at Liverpool.

I understand why Brendan Rodgers wanted to get away from everything after losing the Liverpool job on Sunday. I’ve been there, sacked and told that you have no future in a job you love. You want to disappear for a few days as a clash of emotions bounce around your head. Are you a failure? Is there anything you would have done differently? How will it look to others? Was it fair?

You feel really down.

Unlike Brendan whose situation was played out in the media, I had no real idea that I was going to lose my Sunderland job until the day it happened. We’d lost 4-0 at home to Aston Villa, with all four goals coming in the first half. The mood was bad in the stadium, the result terrible, though we were still 17th and not in the relegation zone.

I went to work on Monday morning as usual. A few people close to me asked: ‘Are you having a meeting today?’. That was the first inkling that it wasn’t going to be a normal day.

A meeting followed soon after at the training ground. Sunderland’s chief executive, secretary and solicitor were there. I was dialled into the club’s American owner, Ellis Short. There were no pleasantries, there was no need. I was told that my contract was being terminated.

It sounds hard and brutal, but it was done in a professional way. I have no complaints and only respect for those people I worked with. I then had a private chat with Short and went to my office.

As my brain absorbed the news, I took a shower, got changed and gathered my few belongings. The players were away, but the club called the captain John O’Shea and passed me the phone to tell him. It was a convivial phone call and we wished each other well. He would tell the players.

Over the next few days, some players – but not all – would text to wish me well. That’s normal; I’ve been a player too and I’m not stupid enough to think that everyone was sad to see me go.

Then I went to say goodbye to the people at the club, the canteen girls or groundsmen who I saw every day. That was hard, but more awkward for them. They didn’t know what to say to me, so I tried to make it easier for them and said ‘it’s football’.

Then I got in my car with one of my assistants, Mauricio Taricco, and drove four hours home to London.

Like Brendan, I wanted to get away and that’s exactly what I did. By coincidence, my son was playing for Uruguay’s under-20s in Paris. I flew there with my wife for a couple of days. We’ve been together 26 years and she knows when I need support and when I’m best left alone. It works. Then we flew to Dubai for privacy. I was getting away from everyone wanting to ask me questions at a time when I didn’t want to answer them.

I also spoke to the League Managers Association, who asked for my thoughts and then put out a statement on my behalf, putting across my views and thanking people. They make sure that everything is tight, for a misplaced comma can cause a scandal.

As it was a normal sacking, i.e. not how Malky Mackay lost his job at Cardiff where he was being criticised publicly by the club owner, my statement was straightforward. I didn’t put a statement out after I lost the Brighton job, but we’ll discuss that in a future column.

I could have put my own statement out, I could have even done it via social media, but I’m not on Twitter and don’t think it’s a good idea for me. I can handle criticism no problem, but personal abuse is different. I’m emotional and I’d end up reacting.

You read so many lies and rumours, even in proper newspapers, and I don’t want that to affect my thinking. My father, long since passed away, used to believe every single thing he read in the newspapers and I tried to put him straight.

I returned to Sunderland three weeks after I’d left to gather my belongings from my apartment. The dust had settled, mentally I was fine. I’ve not been back since, but I only wish them well.

I also wanted to get back into football; I love it, I’m addicted to it. When I lost my job in March I thought: ‘I’ll wait until the summer’. Summer came and with it a few job offers from abroad which weren’t right for me. By the end of pre-season I was thinking: ‘Hmm. I’m not going to be with a club at the start of the season, it’s going to have to be after a colleague loses his job’.

And that’s how it remains. Fortunately, being out of work doesn’t mean I can’t buy food, for people working at the top level in football get well paid.

The phone has started to ring and it’s important for me to be ready to go. I can’t plan anything and nor can my family, but that’s how it is in football. That’s the life I chose and that’s the life I live. Being appointed and being sacked is all part of that, as Brendan Rogers knows only too well.