Embattled Wilkinson clings tenaciously to survival plan

Enoch Powell, who in his 24 years as Wolverhampton's Member of Parliament was conspicuous by his absence at Molineux, once noted that all ministerial careers end in failure. Whatever your achievements, there is always the finality of loss of office.

Looking at Howard Wilkinson, it is tempting to ask whether this is true for managers as well as ministers. His body of work at Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United was impressive, while his five years as the Football Association's technical director will be crowned by the opening of the England Academy in Burton, supposedly the English Clairefontaine.

Yet here he is, bottom of the Premiership, with two victories since succeeding Peter Reid in October; each defeat giving comfort to those critics who claimed Sunderland were appointing someone who no longer understood the game or those who played it.

"Enoch Powell is not on his own; General Patton said it too," Wilkinson reflected. "Very few people are fortunate enough to choose when they come out of something. You need a huge slice of luck to do that, particularly if it's a very high-profile position like politics.

"You seem to be implying there is a home for old, failed managers where we are consigned to live out our lives. Don't worry about my retirement, I suspect it will be happier than yours."

The moment of truth begins at three o'clock. This afternoon Sunderland play Middlesbrough, a team which can boast one goal away from Teesside since September. It is followed by a sequence of matches which will decide not just Sunderland's fate... Fulham, Bolton, West Ham, Birmingham, West Bromwich. The real fear which stalks Wearside is not that Sunderland will be relegated, but that they will be sent down by Newcastle United, whom they meet in the last week of April.

Asked if results are all important, Wilkinson says not. He wants Sunderland to play to a strategy and a set plan. If they need a win in the final match of the season, which worryingly is against Arsenal, he will take a goal off somebody's backside. Until then, no.

"I don't think about what relegation will mean, I know what it will mean because I've been in the business a long time. Do you want me to work out what it would mean to the last pound or how many spectators will leave? Would we have to sell one of the washers, or one of the tractors? I know what it would mean in the larger sense, but thinking about it more deeply will not increase my ability to deal with it at the moment."

His team will have to hold their nerve, much as his Leeds United side did 11 years before, winning four of their last five matches to take a championship for which Wilkinson received too little credit, even at Elland Road.

"It is exactly the same sort of nerve now as it was then, except that your previous experiences which govern your expectations are different. At Leeds, our expectations were of winning football matches. That governs your ability to dismiss the fears and the doubts. To use a golfing analogy I usually say trust the swing that has got you where you are now. Now we need to change the swing.

"It can be done and you can be successful, but, of course, it's harder. I am not going in the face of all known history. The Sunderland team of 1982 were in the same position and survived. Why shouldn't we join that happy band?"

The most obvious reason is that, since December 2001, Sunderland have not managed to win two successive Premiership matches and have not won at all since beating Liverpool more than two months ago.

When he arrived at Sheffield Wednesday, Wilkinson wrote a huge number eight on a blackboard at Hillsborough – the maximum number of matches they could afford to lose and still be promoted. He should do it again since Sunderland will probably need something from eight of their final 11 games to survive.

At every previous club Wilkinson has managed, he has begun with an immediate and dramatic upswing. At Sunderland, his results have been worse than Reid's. "That has surprised me. I have asked myself have you done anything differently or has the situation changed dramatically since those times, and the answer is no. The only thing is that one of the ingredients in changing things is changing the players. I haven't been able to do that."

Sunderland's last financial reserves were exhausted by the final wave of Reid's transfers, which brought in Tore Andre Flo, Marcus Stewart and Stephen Wright, who could have made a difference but have not. These transfer fees alone account for half of the club's £25m debt and the construction of perhaps the best youth academy in Europe took any spare cash. Little wonder that their chairman, Bob Murray, is said to be in a state of despair.

Wilkinson confessed he has never worked harder than he has in these past four months and says to express his frustration at the lack of funds would be "childish". However, two wins in 18 games convince few supporters. Wilkinson enjoyed no honeymoon, he was barracked on the touchline after 70 minutes of his opening match, a 1-0 defeat by West Ham, and, by the time Sunderland were knocked out of the FA Cup by Watford last Saturday, the air was thick with calls for his resignation. "I have had worse," he said. "The Leeds fans were very quick to let you know how they felt. On the swingometer they were very fickle."

Wilkinson says he has a genuine affection for the Sunderland supporters, likening them to the Wednesday fans during the miners' strike in that they were overwhelmingly working-class and, even in times of economic depression, still supported their club. "I understand their frustrations. This club has not been turned round by a huge benefactor, it has been turned round on the backs of the people working at the club and on the backs of the fans."

And if Sunderland are relegated, Wilkinson insists he will carry on until it has been turned around again. He is not ready for the home for retired, failed managers just yet.