Football | EPL: Advocaat heads to England to save troubled Sunderland

Dick Advocaat

Much-traveled coach Dick Advocaat took his first job in English soccer yesterday when he was hired by Sunderland in the latest late-season change by the perennial Premier League struggler.
The 67-year-old Advocaat replaced Gus Poyet, who was fired Monday after 17 months in charge, to become the oldest coach in the Premier League — and the third Dutch manager currently employed in England’s top division.
Sunderland is a point above the drop zone with nine games remaining, and is relying on Advocaat’s experience to get the northeast club out of another relegation scrap. The man nicknamed “The Little General” has never been relegated in three decades as a coach.
“Dick has an incredible CV and vast experience of managing at the very highest level,” Sunderland chairman Ellis Short said. “We have one aim only now, to climb the table, and everyone is fully focused on the task ahead.”
Advocaat’s illustrious coaching career has taken in two stints in charge of the Netherlands and spells with the national teams of United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Belgium, Russia and most recently Serbia. He has been out of work since leaving the Serbian national team in November, just four months into a two-year contract.
As a club coach, he won the Scottish league-and-cup double twice in his four years at Rangers from 1998 to 2002 and has won league titles in his homeland with PSV Eindhoven and in Russia with Zenit St. Petersburg.
The diminutive Advocaat got his nickname from his time as assistant to Rinus Michels — known as “The General” — with the Dutch national team in the mid-1980s.
“Sunderland is a big club, and I am very much looking forward to the challenge ahead,” Advocaat said. “We must now concentrate on Saturday at (West Ham) as a priority, and I can’t wait to get started.”
Sunderland will finish a season with a different coach than it started with for the fourth straight year, with Short — an American businessman — no stranger to making changes to inject life into the team.
Poyet came in midway through last season for Paolo Di Canio, who had replaced Martin O’Neill toward the end of the 2012-13 campaign. O’Neill had come in for Steve Bruce with less than two months to go in the 2010-11 season.
All three coaches kept Sunderland in the lucrative Premier League.
Poyet was fired two days after Sunderland lost 4-0 at home to Aston Villa, which previously hadn’t scored an away goal in the league in more than 10 hours. Sunderland has also been beaten 8-0 this season by Southampton. AP