CLAUDIO REYNA last night confirmed what Howard Wilkinson's detractors claimed throughout his disastrous Sunderland reign - that he was "boring".

In an outspoken attack on the erstwhile Black Cats boss, the United States captain accused Wilkinson of being out of touch with modern-day Premiership players.

"There were too many meetings when Howard Wilkinson was in charge and the players were bored quite a bit," Reyna said.

"He was very much of the old school, but his departure was disappointing. He came into a difficult situation and it was hard to turn things around."

As Reyna delivered his brutal critique of Wilkinson's ill-fated tenure, Sunderland came under fire from Bolton Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce for the "crazy" decision to sack two managers in five months.

Allardyce, who is on the committee of the League Managers' Association, returns to Wearside tomorrow angry that his old club have bucked the trend by dismissing Peter Reid and Wilkinson this season. Sunderland are the only Premiership club to have fired their boss since August, and Allardyce believes they are wrong to have adopted such a trigger-happy policy.

He said: "Apart from Sunderland's situation, we have seen a real curb in the craziness that we saw last year.

"Then, managers fell week by week and month by month, and in the end well over 60 per cent left their clubs in just one season.

"There has been a huge turnaround this season with not that many being sacked, which is a great relief.

"But when it comes to one club bringing in three managers, that is very sad.

"Unfortunately, the LMA are not in control of that. All we can hope for is that Sunderland pay the managers according to the compensation in the contract."

Reyna hailed Mick McCarthy as the "perfect man" to revive Sunderland's fortunes after Wilkinson steered the club to the brink of the Nationwide League.

The 29-year-old, whose knee injury will preclude him from playing for McCarthy's team until next season, was highly impressed by his new boss's performance as Republic of Ireland coach in the Far East last summer.

Reyna said: "We needed a big figure and a popular person to come in and lift the spirits of the whole club.

"I think Mick is the one who's going to do it.

"I think he's the perfect man for the job.

"I know quite a bit about him from the World Cup, and I think he's very similar to Peter Reid.

"He has a very close relationship with his players and is good at man-management.

"Looking at Ireland in the World Cup and the qualifiers, it didn't matter who was playing, he had them playing as a team.

"That shows what a good manager he is."

McCarthy has been linked with moves for Irish internationals Colin Healy and Gary Breen, both of whom will be out of contract this summer.

Celtic midfielder Healy has fallen out of favour under Martin O'Neill, while defender Breen only signed a one-year deal with West Ham United when he joined at the start of the season.

Sunderland trio Thomas Butler, Sean Thornton and Cliff Byrne were yesterday named in the Republic of Ireland Under-21 squad for the forthcoming European Championship qualifiers against Georgia and Albania.

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