Dan Ballard opens up on Sunderland AFC manager saga | OneFootball

Dan Ballard has said that he and his teammates haven't thought much about who will be Sunderland's next head coach, and he revealed the dressing room's thoughts on interim head coach Mike Dodds.

The young central defender has been a big part of Sunderland's efforts to regain trust from the fans following a poor run of form. Between the 10th February, and their embarrassing 5-1 loss at home to Blackburn Rovers, on Easter Monday, the Black Cats picked up four points.

This led to their play-off hopes being completely shattered, but the nature of the defeat to Rovers seems to have snapped them into gear, following some stern words from Dodds.

In their three games since the first day of April, Sunderland have played Bristol City, Leeds United, and West Bromwich Albion; they didn't concede a goal in any of those matches.

This has come at a price, with only one goal being scored by players in red and white striped across the previous three fixtures, as Ballard admitted after the match.

The 24-year-old did praise the interim boss for how he's handled things since the devastating defeat against Blackburn, and he added some interesting comments about the club's search for their next head coach.

The centre-back revealed that the question of who will be the head coach at the start of the 2024/25 season doesn't concern him or his teammates. He said, via the Sunderland Echo: "It doesn’t really get discussed. There is no point looking into the future. We just have to focus on now, listen to the man in charge at the minute and what will be will be."

On the man who is in charge at the moment, Ballard said that the respect that the dressing room has for Dodds has increased during his second stint as interim boss. "I think he said it himself, the Blackburn game was a learning curve for him, not to come off the players because it was our fault,"added the 24-year-old.

"Even though it was our fault, he still took the blame, which shows he’s a good coach. We respect him, he’s done really well. He works so hard behind the scenes and it’s nice to be able to deliver some good results for him because he works so hard.

"I think all the lads had huge respect for him before and we maybe have more respect for him now. He’s had to take on a lot of work himself. He did a lot of work behind the scenes before but now the limelight is on him he’s got that extra pressure. I don’t think it will change too much whatever the decision is going forward, but we respect him and like him as a coach."

Defensive resoluteness in recent games is encouraging for Sunderland

It's a well-known fact that Sunderland have struggled in front of goal this season. Other than Jack Clarke, no other player in the squad has scored double-digit goals this season, in the Championship.

What makes it worse is that their strikers have combined for three net-finding shots in the league, in the 23/24 campaign. Ballard is in the side's top five for league goals scored this season.

So a lack of goals is a known issue, but the poor state that the defence found itself in was almost more worrying, because that wasn't their biggest issue, and yet it became it for a period.

Now that Dodds has been able to steady the ship in their own box, they do need to find ways to be more effective in and around the opposition's.

That said, there will be some piece of mind that they have got back to being more solid at the back, even if they don't increase their productivity in front of goal.