It was a year ago this week that the Black Cats appointed Regis Le Bris, the little-known Frenchman who got the job on the back of being relegated with Lorient.
But Sunderland didn’t judge Le Bris purely on his most recent campaign. They’d long tracked the 49-year-old and felt he was good fit for the top job at the Stadium of Light. Their judgement was spot on.
And Kieran Scott and Middlesbrough officials will trust theirs is the same. Yes, Rob Edwards suffered relegation from the Premier League with Luton Town but surely nobody can judge the 42-year-old on failing to keep the Hatters in the top flight. Nobody expected them to get there!
Yes, Luton then suffered a second successive relegation this season but the fact the Hatters ended up finishing lower in the table than they were when Edwards was sacked in January is a sign of more deep-rooted issues at Kenilworth Road. Boro officials have obviously not ignored this most season but been sympathetic of the mitigating circumstances.
Geoff Doyle, Luton’s commentator for BBC Three Counties Radio, told of how Edwards led the Hatters “with honour and dignity”. When he was sacked, Luton Town Supporters’ Trust put out a statement thanking Edwards for “allowing us to dream big”.
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Town’s chief executive Gary Sweet said Edwards left “not just as a former manager, but as a trusted friend who has left his mark on every player and member of staff”.
Watford were 10th when Edwards was sacked just 11 games into his Vicarage Road tenure. They finished 11th, an indicator that perhaps mid-table is where the Hornets belonged with the squad they had at the time. Edwards finished the season winning promotion with Luton.
Some concerned Boro fans might well point to Luton’s collapse at the Riverside in the 5-1 defeat in November, when Tony Mowbray, who was on commentary duties on BBC Tees, was astonished that Edwards didn’t alter his approach in-game.
Perhaps, however, Edwards had simply got to the stage by that point where he was slightly blinded in his desperate attempts to turn things around. Perhaps it had got to the point where he knew he was fighting a losing battle. It happens. And in his post-match interview that day, Edwards spoke like a manager who was expecting his phone to ring in the following hours.
“I, and we have given everything for this football club,” he said.
“I’ve loved my two years. It’s been one hell of a one hell of a ride, and we’ve achieved things that probably no one thought were possible.
“So, if that is it then I and we can hold our heads high that we’ve given everything.
“I don’t want to be a divisive figure here where the supporters – because they’re the most important people at any football club – they’re the ones that will make that noise and they’re the ones that will let us know.”
Despite that Boro defeat and the criticism that came with it, Edwards can’t be accused of being a manager who fails to adapt.
In Luton’s Premier League season, Edwards was “haunted” by an August defeat to Chelsea and tinkered with his side’s set-up, moving from a 3-5-2 to more of a 3-4-3 or 5-4-1.
Come February, when Luton were still in with a shout of survival, then-Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said: “The job Rob is doing there is insane.
“I’m not sure it’s really respected enough that a team with the amount of points they had in the beginning of the season making such a footballing development, I’m not sure I saw that before. When you saw the Man United game, it was an incredible game.
“Yes, they lost it, but it was an incredible game. They increased possession periods during the season in a really crazy way. Good players, obviously top, top coached.”
Luton accumulated more points that season than any of the other five promoted sides in the last two campaigns. They finished above Burnley, whose manager Vincent Kompany got the Bayern Munich job.
And Edwards was always going to be a leading Boro candidate when Michael Carrick was dismissed, for two reasons.
Firstly, he interviewed for the role when Carrick got the job and was said to be hugely impressive.
Not that Kieran Scott will have been at all surprised. Boro’s head of football worked with Edwards at Wolves and was struck then by his qualities as a coach and a man-manager.
It was a chat with Edwards that convinced England Under-21 international Teden Mengi to leave Manchester United for Luton in the summer of 2023.
“I just knew this man actually cares about me,” he said.
Edwards has a background in player development. After leading Wolves’ Under-23s to the highest level of youth football for the first time in the club’s history, he was headhunted by the FA and worked with England’s Under-20s before taking charge of the Under-16s.
Forest Green said he was one of more than 100 applicants for their manager’s job in 2021. He took them up as champions, the first time Forest Green had ever reached League One.
It’s no surprise really that Bristol City – who finished above Boro and secured a place in the play-offs last season – were interested in Edwards after Liam Manning’s move to Norwich City.
But it was the Boro job that Edwards wanted. And sources say Boro were stuck by his fierce determination in his interviews and talks, a hunger and desperation to right the wrongs of how it ended at Luton.
Boro have looked beyond how it ended at Luton.
