WHEN Sunderland made the decision to part company with Michael Beale in February, they would not have expected their head coach search could lead them towards Liam Rosenior.
Sunderland had been beaten by former head coach Tony Mowbray at Birmingham City as their play-off hopes suffered a damaging week following on from their defeat at Huddersfield Town just three days earlier. Hull City meanwhile, under Rosenior, had completed back-to-back wins over Rotherham United and then at Huddersfield to leave them eighth in the Championship table, level on points with sixth placed Coventry City. They followed that up by beating eventual play-off winners Southampton – part of a seven game unbeaten run.
Rosenior’s stock felt quite high. Hull suffered just three defeats in their final 16 games of the season as they narrowly missed out on a play-off spot, with Rosenior nominated for the Championship’s manager of the year award alongside Leeds United's Daniel Farke and Ipswich Town's Kieran McKenna who picked up the accolade. Sunderland, within that same period of time under both Beale and interim head coach Mike Dodds, lost 10 of their final 16 games. It’s why news of Rosenior’s sacking at the end of the season came as such a surprise beyond the walls of the MKM Stadium.
Rosenior, a former player of almost 400 senior appearances with Bristol City, Fulham, Reading, Brighton & Hove Albion and Hull, as well as being capped at international youth level for England, replaced Shota Arveladze on Humberside in November 2022 after the club parted company with the Georgian following a sluggish start to the 2022-23 campaign.
Rosenior had earned his stripes, as such, having previously formed part of the academy coaching team at Brighton prior to an interim period as head coach with Derby County after Wayne Rooney’s exit in the summer of 2022. Rosenior had also been part of the coaching set-up in the East Midlands prior to that as he formed part of Phillip Cocu’s staff in 2019 before being promoted to the assistant manager role under Rooney.
Rosenior left Derby in the autumn after four wins during his eight-game interim spell in charge as the club moved to appoint Paul Warne as permanent manager. Hull were just one point above the Championship’s relegation zone prior to Rosenior's appointment in the November and, although there were a lot of draws during his first season in charge, 14 to be exact, Rosenior lost just six of his 28 games as Hull finished 15th in the league table away from relegation to League One.
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Backed by Turkish media mogul Acun Ilicali in the summer, the aspirations of Hull became quite clear in that a promotion push would be the target for Rosenior last season. Despite coming up short of the play-offs on the final day, after a 1-0 defeat at Plymouth Argyle saw them finish three points behind Norwich City, Rosenior had transformed Hull from relegation strugglers into play-off candidates.
So, why was he dismissed?
“This has been the most difficult decision I have had to make as chairman of this wonderful football club,” chairman and owner Ilıcalı said. “No matter how trying the circumstance, I have to remove personal sentiment from these moments and ensure the long-term vision of the club is at the centre of my thinking.
“Since Liam’s arrival, we have enjoyed an open working relationship and progress has undoubtedly been made over the course of his tenure. He will always be a part of this family and I thank him for all his work.
“However, it has become evident that our visions for the future are not aligned and I feel that now is the time to make a change. Our philosophy is clear, we will continue to drive this club forward, and whilst doing so I will continue to be open and transparent with our fans.
“I know what this football club can achieve, and we will not stop in the pursuit of that. We have worked hard over the last two years to develop our squad. We now have many highly talented players at our disposal and we will continue to invest and improve our playing personnel to give this club and its fans the success they deserve.”
In an interview with BBC Humberside, Ilicali elaborated further by highlighting Rosenior’s style of play as being a key factor behind the decision and misalignment at the club.
"At the end of the day me and my team are dreaming of something for this club and there is a football style we want to see on the pitch,” he explained.
"Liam's football philosophy is very good and may be successful, but we didn't see it suiting our character for the future. I want offensive football. I want an attacking, entertaining team. I said it from the first minute I bought this club.
"I said I would rather lose 3-2 than have a boring 0-0. If you are counting the points and draw every game 0-0 you are going to get relegated. If you lose 3-2, it means you will win another game 4-1.
"My football brain is completely full of a successful and entertaining football style. Liam has a great philosophy, but there are different styles of football in the world - Liam's direction can be successful but we want to see different things."
Despite his reasoning, Ilicali’s decision could very well end up strengthening an opponent next season, with Rosenior having been sought after since being made available. The 39-year-old was an initially shortlisted by Norwich in their head coach search after parting company with David Wagner on the back of their unsuccessful play-off campaign before they moved for Nordsjælland's Johannes Hoff Thorup.
Both Plymouth and Birmingham also held an interest in Rosenior before their appointments of Rooney and Tottenham Hotspur's Chris Davies, with Rosenior believed to have turned down approaches from both.
Former club Brighton were also linked with Rosenior, a move which would have reflected quite poorly on Hull if their former head coach were to find himself in the Premier League before them after taking the decision to part ways. Albion have been looking to replace Roberto de Zerbi who left the AMEX Stadium at the conclusion of the Premier League season against Manchester United, with reports suggesting Rosenior had been a guest of Brighton's directors for their penultimate home game with Chelsea in May. Instead, Brighton now look set to appoint 31-year-old St Pauli coach Fabian Hurzeler from Germany's second tier, having also held an interest in Ipswich's McKenna.
But what about Sunderland and their interest? And what of Rosenior’s style of play that led him to being sacked?
Sunderland’s purpose of handing the head coach role over to Dodds on an interim basis until the end of the season was to allow the club’s hierarchy the opportunity to seek out the ideal replacement for Beale. Such was the erroneous magnitude of Beale’s appointment, the club are taking all the time necessary to ensure their next decision does not follow suit.
Several names have been linked with the role including longstanding candidate Will Still, who turned down the opportunity to move to the Stadium of Light in favour of remaining in France with Racing Club de Lens where he agreed a three-year deal with the Europa Conference League side. Bayern Munich youth coach Rene Maric is another to have been unanimously linked with the role in recent months but the 31-year-old looks set to stay in Bavaria as part of Vincent Kompany's backroom staff while recently linked Pascal Jansen, former AZ Alkmaar boss, has now been ruled out of the running.
But Rosenior’s sudden departure at the end of the season threw up an interesting situation for the club: Do they change their processes which led them to the aforementioned names, or is there room for flexibility in their search if and when other potential candidates become available?
Rosenior's reluctance over both the Plymouth and Birmingham jobs suggest he sees his future at a higher level than League One or the bottom end of the Championship and although Sunderland finished 16th in the league table, there will be hope they are competing towards the top end of the division next season.
Sunderland have reached out to Rosenior, with the 39-year-old recently holding talks with the club's hierarchy about the vacancy, although there has been some hesitation since those talks. Queens Park Rangers boss Marti Cifuentes is another name believed to be under consideration but would require Sunderland to come up with a suitable compensation package for the Spaniard, while there may also still be an unnamed candidate in contention, such has been the case throughout the club's elongated process.
Majority owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus recently addressed supporters in a statement whereby he insisted an appointment would be made 'imminently,' with Rosenior understood to be one of those candidates in the frame as the club looks to bring a close to its process.
Based upon his time with Hull, Rosenior was in charge of the eighth youngest squad in the Championship last season and would need to adjust accordingly given the relevant lack of experience within Sunderland’s squad in comparison who have had the youngest squad in the division in each of their two years back in the second tier. That said, Rosenior has shown he has been able to develop younger players when at Brighton and with Hull, having also been entrusted with key loan signings such as Manchester City’s Liam Delap and Liverpool duo Tyler Morton and Fabio Carvalho. Those loan signings in particular will be of interest to Sunderland given both their policy and use of the loan market with the likes of Amad Diallo and Mason Burstow in recent years.
The trio of Delap, Morton and Carvalho contributed 29 goals and assists between them last season, that despite Delap seeing his campaign cut short to just 31 games through injury and Carvalho only arriving on loan in January. Rosenior had four players with double figures when it comes to goal contributions last season to Sunderland’s one.
The link up between Morton and Delap was a feature when the two sides met on Boxing Day in what turned out to be one of just four wins for Beale in charge of Sunderland. Morton started the game in a right-sided central midfield area with Delap as the right winger in Rosenior’s hybrid 4-2-2-2 system.
Both Morton and Delap remained in close proximity to one another which caused Sunderland trouble at times – Delap in particular forcing an excellent save from Anthony Patterson in the second half after the pair had linked up.
With Morton being the deeper of the two, it was often he who would search for the ball with Delap in behind. But wherever Morton went, Delap tended to follow.
This includes the aforementioned opportunity for Delap where, as you can see below, Morton has drifted out into a wide area on a transition to stretch the Sunderland defence. Delap, sensing an opening, now has space to run into in the right channel as Morton feeds the ball into the space.
But it isn’t all just Morton’s work with the ball at his feet, as Delap plays his part, too.
The example below shows how the duo, along with forward Ozan Tufan, combine to create a huge space in Sunderland’s defence – one which Morton should do better from.
With Tufan in possession, Morton times his run between Dan Neil and Trai Hume well to find the space vacated by Dan Ballard who has stepped out to meet Tufan. This is all aided by the decoy run of Delap who acknowledges Morton’s run by moving the opposite way behind Tufan to create an even bigger space.
The move may not have led to a goal, but it was evidence of the rotations involved in Rosenior’s front line.
It’s no secret Sunderland are the latest of teams who see their identity as playing out from the back, through the thirds and being an aggressive, attacking team. Although Rosenior’s style of play was criticised by the Hull owner, there are similarities between the two teams.
Rosenior’s Hull ranked third when it comes to average passes per game with 583.15 behind only Southampton and Leicester City – Sunderland were sixth with 543.09. That approach lends itself to a slower pace towards goal with Hull recording the second lowest behind Russell Martin’s Southampton – Sunderland seventh lowest in that category.
Hull were sixth in the Championship when it comes to dribbles per game with Leeds, Southampton, Birmingham, Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland above them, who rank top given Jack Clarke’s influence. What’s interesting about that statistic is that of the teams ranked higher than Hull for dribbles, Leeds and Southampton were both Premier League primed, while Birmingham have been under the stewardship of former Sunderland head coach Mowbray and Sheffield Wednesday are coached by Rohl, a man Sunderland were also interested in.
If we are to compare Hull under Rosenior to the Championship league average, the graphic below shows how they tend to average less high pressing shots, set piece threats and counter attacking shots, but average a higher xG, number of shots and crosses into the box than most teams in the division.
Hull’s xG trendline last season shows a disparity at the start of the year whereby they were conceding a significant amount of more dangerous opportunities than they were creating – a trend which continued until around the halfway point of the season.
That being said, Rosenior’s team steadily improved their own attacking output throughout the first part of the season, a trend which peaked over the Christmas week in their fixtures with Sunderland and Blackburn Rovers.
Although their build-up play exhibits similarities with Sunderland, Rosenior’s out of possession and defensive approach differs. Where Sunderland, statistically, are quite a high pressing team looking to win back possession as soon as possible in the opposition half, Hull have been a little more reserved.
The benefits of not being as gung-ho in looking to regain possession high up the field means Hull are able to regroup and not be left exposed and vulnerable to a counter attack. Equally, it does not place as many physical demands on players throughout the 90 minutes. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact Hull conceded, on average, the fourth fewest clear shots per game last season.
That being said, in contrast, Hull were second when it comes to high press shots conceded at 3.52 per 90 minutes. This is due to their build-up play from the back leaving them potentially vulnerable to high pressing teams.
That building from the back became clear on Boxing Day in Sunderland’s visit to the MKM Stadium where we saw Regan Slater’s flexibility in stepping into midfield from defence. Slater started the game at left-back but very quickly became a prominent figure in overloading the midfield areas alongside Rosenior’s linchpin, Jean Michael Seri
Beale set Sunderland up in a narrow defensive structure to try and combat Slater’s movement and the impact of Seri on the game as shown in the image above, with their front four being a compact line of defence.
It led to the game becoming something of a chess match, with Slater continuously moving into midfield from full-back to operate as the second pivot alongside Seri – a tactic which allowed Morton to advance into those pockets of space discussed earlier alongside Delap.
The idea of Rosenior’s philosophy is to draw out Sunderland’s first line of press and be able to manoeuvre around them by creating overloads in those central areas.
To do that, along with Slater stepping in-field from full-back, Seri would also drop deeper to almost anchor as a third centre-back alongside Alfie Jones and Jacob Greaves.
Despite Beale’s tactical set-up to nullify the centre of the field, Seri was still key in midfield having been involved in 109 of Hull’s 650 passes. Only centre-back Jones was involved in more with 273. What stands out more for Seri, however, is that he linked up with 13 of his 14 team-mates in that game – the only player he did not share a pass with was Harry Vaughan who came on as an 89th minute substitute.
Given Sunderland’s need for a holding midfield player this summer following Corry Evans’ exit, it would be interesting who Rosenior would see fitting into the ‘Seri-role’ at the Stadium of Light. Neil’s ability to carry the ball and both receive and distribute possession lends itself to him being an ideal choice of both dropping deep to help start building attacks as well as contributing further forward – his nine goal contributions last season likely to appeal to Rosenior compared to Seri’s five. But that ‘quarterback role,’ if you will, is an important position in Rosenior’s set-up.
And it was a role which Hull missed in the reverse fixture on Wearside just three weeks later with Seri on international duty with the Ivory Coast at the African Cup of Nations. Rosenior was hindered by a number of key absentees for the return game, including Delap who picked up an injury on New Year’s Day which kept him out of action until April. Only six of those who started for Hull on Boxing Day started at the Stadium of Light.
It meant Rosenior had to be flexible in his approach at Sunderland as Slater actually began the game in midfield in place of Seri, with Matt Jacob starting just his third game in the Championship at full-back.
Rosenior refrained from the inverted full-back role on this occasion and remained pretty rigid in his system with a more distinguished shape – the image below showing how the two strikers, Tufan and Carvalho, would drop back into midfield to assist Slater and Morton.
Rosenior accepted Hull would need to surrender most of the possession and territory to Sunderland but he turned to right-back Lewie Coyle to be his wildcard of the evening, both in defence and attack.
While Coyle did not step in-field as much as Slater in the reverse fixture, the former Leeds youth defender was able to drive at the Sunderland defence to apply pressure.
With Hull’s two strikers often dropping deeper, as shown above, it allowed space for Coyle to exploit and put Sunderland on the backfoot. On this occasion he is able to bypass the laboured challenge of Jobe Bellingham to exchange with Tufan. Coyle now finds himself as Hull’s main attacking threat inside the penalty area with an opportunity which should yield more for his team.
Defensively as well, however, Coyle played an important role up against Clarke.
The winger had done the damage at the MKM Stadium in December and Rosenior was keen not to allow that to happen again as he continuously ordered his team to outnumber Sunderland’s star man.
Clarke was the Championship’s leading ball carrier by some distance which meant Hull would sometimes draw as many as four players in to deal with his threat. Given Sunderland’s lack of goals elsewhere, it was a logical assessment as Rosenior allowed his team to offer up space to several Sunderland players unmarked in the penalty area in order to deal with Clarke.
The idea was to cut off the threat from the source.
Having taken the lead through Carvalho, Hull had something to hold onto and Rosenior demonstrated his flexibility once more by rotating his players in and out of possession, particularly with winger Jason Lokilo.
With much of Sunderland’s play going down the left through Clarke, Lokilo was able to drop back into a left wing-back position as the defence all stepped over one in order to deal with Clarke. Hull made it extremely compact for Sunderland who were unable to find a breakthrough as Hull levelled the season scores up with a 1-0 win of their own – a result Rosenior described as one of the best of their campaign given the circumstances.
Rosenior’s ability to adapt in games, as shown against Sunderland across the two fixtures, is noticeable – as it is for the majority of progressive, forward-thinking head coaches nowadays. But one of the key attributes for Rosenior’s brand of football stems from the very back with his goalkeeper and is an area which would provide great intrigue if he were to take on the position at the Stadium of Light.
Patterson’s future remains one that will draw speculation given the Premier League interest in his services over the course of the last 12 months and now Sheffield United showing an interest in the 24-year-old ahead of their return to the Championship next season. For Rosenior, however, he will need to be absolutely sure Patterson can operate within his demands of being the origin of their play.
With Hull, Rosenior has favoured Ryan Allsop, with the emphasis, undoubtedly, being to play out from under pressure.
Allsop ranked 10th for open play passes per 90 minutes for Hull last season with 41.78, the highest total of any goalkeeper in the Championship, compared to Patterson’s 23.85. He completed 79 per cent of his passes on average and, unlike most goalkeepers, did not find himself bottom of Hull’s xG chain, meaning he contributes towards significant attacking moments in games. Allsop was top of Hull’s pass on-ball-vale (OBV) at 0.12 and eighth in the Championship among all goalkeepers to have featured for any period of time.
Hull’s attacking radar from earlier showed how the average length of the goalkeeper’s passing was short, only Illan Meslier and Alex Palmer played more shorter balls than Hull’s No.1 of goalkeepers to have featured more the 2,500 minutes last season. Additionally, Allsop’s goalkeeper OBV is 0.29 which is the highest of any goalkeeper over 2000 minutes.
Those numbers are all fascinating to read, but what do they mean in practice?
We have seen from the games with Sunderland how Rosenior likes to instruct his teams to play out from the back and that wasn’t just evident in those two fixtures.
Take the final day defeat at Plymouth, for example. In what was a high pressure game for Hull, there was no abstaining from their philosophy, with Allsop tasked with several under pressure plays in the game including the one shown below.
The goalkeeper narrows an angle for his centre-back, Jones, to play a pass back to him with Plymouth pressing high, which then leaves him with a series of options. The safety-first option would see Allsop clear the ball long as three Plymouth attackers close in. The next best option would appear to be moving the ball out to the left-sided centre-back, Greaves, who is creating a bigger angle for his goalkeeper.
Instead, Allsop trusts his ability and plays a risky pass into Seri, such is the importance we have already established of the Ivorian on this team.
The standout evidence from Allsop in this game came soon after.
We see the likes of Ederson with Manchester City and Alisson with Liverpool perform similar aggressive passes out from the back at Premier League level, and this was Allsop showing how this type of role for a goalkeeper can work in the Championship.
As you can see below, Plymouth have again pressed Hull into their own defensive third with no real option to the centre-backs or into Seri available for Allsop. Instead, Allsop is able to spot Carvalho, who has dropped deeper into his own half, through that first line of press.
Allsop fizzes a pass through the lines under pressure into Carvalho who then has space to turn and drive forward. It’s a risk-reward style of play which requires great composure from the goalkeeper.
In Hull’s penultimate game of the season with Ipswich, we see again how much Allsop is involved under Rosenior. The two centre-backs are never afraid to give the ball back to their goalkeeper, regardless of the pressure they are under, trusting him to deal with the next phase of play accordingly.
As well as his ability to pick out a pass, Allsop’s ability to operate as a sweeper behind the defence is just as key.
Against Ipswich, Allsop touched the ball 60 times, the sixth most of his team. Of those 60 touches, almost a third of them came outside his own penalty area as he was tasked with helping Hull push further up the field as well as being able to deal with any direct balls forward from Ipswich.
Although Rosenior wasn’t able to deliver the top-six spot clearly required for Hull chairman Ilicali, there were mitigating circumstances given player injuries and even the loss of Scott Twine who averaged Hull’s most key passes last season and was second in terms of expected assists (xA) despite joining Bristol City in January. That said, the marked improvement in Hull since Rosenior took charge over 18 months ago should not go unnoticed.
At 39, he represents the mould of a coach Sunderland are targeting in being young and progressive, while his style of play mirrors some aspects already in place at the Stadium of Light. Rosenior’s impact in securing big loan signings is appealing, having played a key role in bringing Carvalho to the MKM Stadium – only a handful of players outscored the Portuguese in the Championship during his loan spell.
Rosenior earned more points (70) than Sunderland achieved in their 2022-23 campaign when reaching the play-offs, winning one more game and scoring the same number of goals.
While Sunderland have been keen to stick to their principles in identifying head coach candidates, the situation with Still has led to them having to expand those processes, where remaining open and flexible to somebody like Rosenior could now prove beneficial and is an avenue they would be wise not to close off.
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