IN one of the final press conferences of his reign as interim boss, Mike Dodds unwittingly provided the perfect assessment of Sunderland’s ongoing search for a permanent head coach.

“The appointment of the head coach is going to be a marker,” said Dodds. “That will speak for itself. I’m not going to speak for other people because I don’t think it needs any kind of statement. Actions speak louder than words.”

Well, 115 days after Michael Beale was dismissed, there have been precious few words, and even fewer actions.

What a mess. If you were being kind to the Sunderland hierarchy, and that’s probably a lot more than they deserve at the moment, you could argue that by pursuing candidates that have subsequently been lured elsewhere, their judgements have been validated. That’s clutching at a fairly pathetic set of straws though.

The less flattering assessment of the last four months is that a deeply-damaging period of stasis, in which Dodds’ disastrous temporary reign wrecked Sunderland’s league position and created a thoroughly-justified sense of anger and frustration within the fanbase, has been followed by three failed attempts to recruit a new boss.

Missing out on one potential appointee can be considered unfortunate. Two, and the situation becomes worrying. Make it three, however, and the sense of deep-rooted problems being repeatedly exposed becomes impossible to ignore.

A quick recap. Having had Will Still on their radar for more than a year, and certainly long before Michael Beale was appointed, never mind let go, Kristjaan Speakman and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus thought they had their man a fortnight ago.

Initial talks with the 31-year-old had gone well – or so they thought – and Sunderland officials were even planning how, and when, Still’s appointment would be confirmed. Then Lens came to the table, and Still was instead persuaded to head back to Ligue 1. The Englishman’s camp claim he had reservations about Sunderland’s ambition and the make-up of the backroom structure he was going to have to work with; the Black Cats are adamant that was all agreed and Lens simply offered more money and the chance to manage in the top half of the French top-flight. As ever with these things, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Will Still has been appointed as the new boss of LensWill Still has been appointed as the new boss of Lens (Image: The Northern Echo)

Sunderland looked elsewhere, considering three or four leading candidates, and by last Friday, Louis-Dreyfus felt confident enough in developments to release a statement claiming an appointment was “imminent”. Unless he has a very different definition of ‘imminent’ to the rest of us, he was clearly jumping the gun.

Pascal Jansen was regarded as the frontrunner at that stage, and the former AZ Alkmaar boss is known to have been one of the options that was spoken to last week. By the start of this week, however, news was emerging that he was no longer under consideration. Why? That is still somewhat unclear, although sources claim there were reservations on both sides that eventually meant both were happy to walk away.

Enter Liam Rosenior. The former Hull boss was still ensconced at the KC Stadium when Beale was dismissed, and didn’t leave Humberside until after the end of Dodds’ temporary tenure, so unless Speakman and Louis-Dreyfus have one hell of a crystal ball, it’s hard to see how he could have been a realistic candidate when the pair were supposed to be doing their ‘strategic planning’.

Nevertheless, he was certainly being considered in the early part of this week, with an initial round of talks known to have taken place. As was the case with Still, Sunderland chiefs were fairly confident of finally being able to seal a deal. Burnley were waiting in the wings though, and while Rosenior is far from guaranteed to get the job at Turf Moor, he wanted to at least bide his time to see how his candidature with the Clarets went. Understandably, that didn’t suit Sunderland, who have finally accepted that a degree of urgency needs to be injected into proceedings. By Tuesday evening, another one had bitten the dust.

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The saga has become farcical, and is especially damning when posited against Speakman’s repeated platitudes about an “obsession with progression” and a “relentless pursuit of excellence”. There’s been precious little that has been excellent about the last four months.

Why haven’t Sunderland been able to make an appointment? Clearly, some developments have been out of their hands. But the longer this drags on, and the more potential candidates that fall by the wayside, the harder it becomes to ignore some of the criticisms that have been levelled at Speakman and Louis-Dreyfus since the start of the process. Are prospective bosses worried about a lack of investment? Do they want more control over the recruitment process, in the same way that Alex Neil and Tony Mowbray did? Are they refusing to have a backroom staff imposed on them instead of being able to bring in their own coaches?

The Sunderland hierarchy will claim they still have a chance to get this right. There is a long-standing interest in Marti Cifuentes, but getting the 41-year-old out of QPR will be both difficult and expensive. Paul Heckingbottom remains available. There has long been talk of at least one more unnamed candidate who has already been approached.

Privately, sources are insisting there is no sense of panic and that talks have continued to take place this week. As Dodds so presciently stated, however, actions speak louder than words. With the transfer window opening tomorrow, and with Dan Neil and Chris Rigg both waiting to see what happens before making decisions on their future, Sunderland desperately need to end the current inertia before the damage becomes irreparable.