Ross will use transformative St Mirren template to try to turn around Sunderland

Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson looks at how the Scotsman turned his former employers from relegation certainties to runaway champions

WHEN Jack Ross walked into St Mirren in October 2016, he encountered a club that was well and truly on its knees. Three months of the season had gone, and with former Sunderland midfielder Alex Rae at the helm, St Mirren hadn’t won a game. Rooted to the foot of the Championship table, the club’s very survival as a full-time entity was at stake.

Off the field, things were every bit as bad. Having been relegated from the Scottish Premier League two seasons earlier, the stench of decline had set in. Morale was at rock bottom, and interest in the club was waning. Attendances at the Paisley 2021 Stadium were in rapid decline, and Ross immediately detected a sharp disconnect between St Mirren and its fans.

• READ: Sunderland confirm Jack Ross' appointment as manager

Ringing any bells? Sunderland’s story over the course of the last two seasons bears powerful parallels to the tale that Ross was tasked with reversing at St Mirren. Because of the relative size of the two clubs, the Black Cats’ capitulation has even been even more dramatic and painful, but at least as he begins to tackle the mess he has inherited on Wearside, the 41-year-old can look back on his time with the Buddies and latch on to the things that worked.

As an immediate priority, that means beginning the process of rebuilding the relationship with the fans that has broken down so dramatically in the last few years, something that Sunderland’s new owner, Stewart Donald, also flagged up as a key ambition at his introductory press conference on Monday.

“I think there was a real disconnect between the supporters and the team, so we had to rebuild that,” said Ross, reflecting on his time at St Mirren in a recent interview with Nutmeg magazine. “When you have a positive environment within the stadium, and you have the real backing of the supporters in it, it galvanises your players more.

“Football is all about atmosphere and that feeling you get. When I was a kid watching games, that feeling when you walk up the steps for the first time was brilliant. Kids and fans should still experience that.”

In his one-and-a-half years as St Mirren boss, Ross helped grow the club’s average attendance by around 25 per cent. The success of the team on the pitch clearly helped, but there were other factors that helped entice lapsed supporters back to games.

Ross proactively courted the main St Mirren fans’ groups – something Donald has already sought to do on Wearside during his first week in charge – and even donated money to help one of the organisations, the North Bank, pay for flags and banners that could be displayed before matches.

“We have done that as staff and recently gave them a cash donation,” he said at the time. “It wasn’t a huge amount, but it was simply to pay for materials because they produce banners and so on.

“It was an opportunity for me to hand over the donation personally, and thank them because they have made such a huge difference to the atmosphere of the stadium.”

Sunderland’s supporters have felt shunned in recent years, so any attempt at reengagement will be rapturously received. Ultimately, though, Ross will be judged by results on the field, and again his experiences at St Mirren provide cause for encouragement.

For his first couple of months in charge after leaving Alloa Athletic, Ross struggled to bring about an improvement. The January transfer window provided an opportunity to change things, though, and after moving some players out to create an opening to bring new signings in, fortunes changed.

St Mirren won four games in a row in the February of Ross’ first season in charge, and eventually finished three places above the foot of the table, avoiding automatic relegation and a play-off that could still have seen them dropping into the First Division. As an added bonus, they even led Celtic at Parkhead for almost 50 minutes before eventually slipping to an FA Cup quarter-final defeat.

Last season, the ambition was to finish in mid-table, but an early-season thrashing of title favourites Dundee United set the tone, and St Mirren spent the whole of the campaign looking down on the rest of the division. They eventually won the title by 12 points, a gap that would have been even bigger had they not taken their foot off the gas and won just one of their final five matches after promotion was confirmed.

Ross’ footballing philosophy is something of a hybrid of styles. He likes his players to be comfortable in possession, and his St Mirren side completed more passes than any other team in the Scottish Championship last season. However, he also wants them to pass with purpose, rejecting the notion of cherishing possession for possession’s sake.

His St Mirren players have conducted a number of interviews where they extol his man-management capabilities, as well as the meticulous training methods that are based around repetition of core skills and a particular focus on match situations.

“Part of the reason for me coming back to St Mirren was the manager,” said St Mirren captain Stephen McGinn, in an interview with the Scottish Sun. “I thought really highly of him as a player, and always thought he had the skill-set to be successful in whatever he did after his playing career.

“My brother, Paul, worked with him at Dumbarton, and raved about his coaching and how good he was with players. It’s something that’s stood out over the last 18 months. He’s been brilliant with the players, and very few will ever have a bad word to say about him.

“His man-management skills are his biggest strength. In any business, I think he’d be a really successful manager because he is so good at dealing with people. His communication skills are excellent.

“Obviously, we’d love him to be our manager for as long as possible. But we’ve always known there would be teams circling as he’s done such a good job.”