Sunderland chief slams fans for being ‘quiet’ during Wembley play-off defeat and insists they need to be ‘realistic’ about League One life
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SUNDERLAND director Charlie Methven has told fans they must be “realistic” about life in League One - and has slammed them for being “quiet” at Wembley.
The Black Cats will play in the third tier for a second season after losing Sunday’s play-off final 2-1 to Charlton.
And Methven, who owns a minority stake in the club, hit out at supporters’ perceived entitlement to being back in the top divisions.
He said: “Ultimately Sunderland fans need to get realistic about that.
“Charlton have been in the Premier League for much of the last 20, 30 years and they had 40,000 fans to our 34,000 fans at Wembley.
“On sheer size of club, it’s hard to say that Charlton were the ones that had to stay down.
“I thought Charlton fans were very loud, very vocal. I thought our fans were quiet.
“It’s almost as if fans, players, management, and us as management, didn’t quite believe enough to make it happen.”
ROSS IN DOUBT
There could be huge changes at Sunderland this summer with owner Stewart Donald in talks to sell his majority stake, while boss Jack Ross’ future is also up in the air.
Methven added: “We will have to work out how we can improve because sure as hell we need to improve.
“Failure to achieve promotion is a failure.
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“But all you can wallow in it and let it kill you, or you can dust yourselves down and work out how to succeed.
“We must react to this disappointment and failure in the right way.
“We all need to take a look at ourselves now and understand what we need to do to sort this out and get better because it’s a terrific disappointment."