Michael Beale (football coach)

Michael Beale (born 4 September 1980) is an English football manager who is currently assistant manager of Saudi Pro League club Al-Ettifaq.^[1]

Beale played football as a youth, but retired at 21 and became a coach. He worked for Chelsea, Liverpool and São Paulo. After stints working as first team coach with Steven Gerrard at Rangers and Aston Villa, Beale became manager of Queens Park Rangers in June 2022. He left QPR after five months to become manager of Rangers, but was sacked from that role in October 2023. Beale subsequently joined Sunderland in December 2023, lasting 12 games in charge, before being sacked in February 2024. Beale was appointed assistant manager of Al-Ettifaq by Steven Gerrard in November 2024.

Beale's playing career started at Charlton Athletic and, after being released by Charlton, he had short trials at Twente in the Netherlands, and at clubs in the United States, before calling an end to his playing days at the age of 21.^[2]

Beale's next step in football was to invest some of the money he had made as a youth player into setting up a futsal club for children in his hometown of Bromley, South London.^[3] It was while training children here that he caught the attention of Chelsea Academy boss Neil Bath who, in 2002, offered him a role as a part-time youth coach at their Cobham Training Centre,^[4] where he worked as assistant coach of Chelsea's Under-7s and Under-9s squads.

After admitting to becoming somewhat frustrated with the lack of progression of young players into Chelsea's first team since the takeover of Roman Abramovich in 2003,^[2] Beale took an offer to work at the Liverpool Academy, beginning as the coach of the Under-15s team, before progressing to become coach of the Under-21s. It was in this role that Beale first worked alongside Steven Gerrard, who was coaching the Liverpool Under-18s at the time.^[5]

In January 2017, Beale, who was a long-time fan of South American football, accepted the opportunity to move to Brazilian club São Paulo, learning Portuguese to act as assistant to Rogério Ceni.^[6] However, six months later, Ceni and his backroom team were sacked after a string of poor results.^[7]

After a short time back working with Liverpool's youth set-up, Beale was contacted by Steven Gerrard to act as the first team coach at Rangers. In three years in Scotland under Gerrard, Beale and Gary McAllister, Rangers won their 55th league title in the 2020–21 league season preventing city rivals Celtic from winning a tenth successive league title.^[8]

In November 2021, Gerrard was offered the role of manager at Aston Villa, following the sacking of Dean Smith. Beale and McAllister followed him.^[9]

On 1 June 2022, Beale was appointed first team coach at Championship side Queens Park Rangers.^[10][11]

He had a mixed start to his career at QPR; winning only one of his first five matches, losing at home to Blackpool (who were eventually relegated that same season) and only securing a point at Sunderland thanks to the last minute heroics of Ilias Chair and Seny Dieng, both of whom scored in injury time to rescue an unlikely point.

Beale and QPR then found a superb run of form, winning eight of their next eleven league matches, sending them to the top of the Championship table. However, this form was proven to be temporary as they went on to lose four of their next five matches. They were well beaten at Birmingham and Coventry as well as losing at home to Huddersfield and West Brom.

With QPR top of the Championship in October 2022, Beale was approached by Wolverhampton Wanderers to become their new manager, but reportedly turned them down.^[12] Upon turning down the opportunity to become manager at Wolves, Beale spoke about integrity and loyalty in an interview for the QPR website: "Integrity is a real big thing for me and loyalty. You don't give it to receive it back, but if those are the things you live by then at times when you are put in a position you have to be strong by them."

On 28 November 2022, Beale accepted an approach to leave QPR and manage Scottish side Rangers, where he had worked previously as the first team coach under Steven Gerrard.^[13] Beale had a successful start to his Rangers managerial career, winning his first four matches in charge, after which he was named Scottish Premiership manager of the month for December.^[14] Two defeats at Hampden by Celtic meant that Rangers finished the 2022–23 season without a trophy.^[15] Beale was sacked on 1 October 2023, after a third defeat in the first seven league matches of the 2023–24 season.^[15]

On 18 December 2023, Beale was appointed as head coach of Sunderland on a contract until the Summer of 2026.^[16][17][18] Beale said joining the club was a "huge honour"^[17][19][20] and a "fantastic opportunity",^[21][22] praising the "alignment" within the club and of its and his philosophies.^[23][24][25] On 19 January 2024, Sunderland lost to an out-of-form Hull City, marking a third successive defeat and the fourth defeat in Beale's first seven fixtures as head coach.^[26][27][28] After this loss, Beale was met with widespread criticism from Sunderland supporters, including calls for his dismissal.^[29][30][31]

During a press conference held on 26 January 2024, Beale criticsed the "negativity" and "lack of respect" he said he had received from Sunderland supporters during his tenure.^[32][33][34] On 17 February, the pressure on Beale further increased after Sunderland lost 2-1 to Birmingham City, who were being managed by Beale's predecessor as Sunderland head coach, Tony Mowbray.^[35][36][37] In the same match, Beale seemingly ignored an attempted handshake from Sunderland defender Trai Hume, leading to more criticism from Sunderland fans.^[38][39][40]

On 19 February 2024, Sunderland sacked Beale.^[41][42] He was head coach for 63 days and oversaw 12 games,^[43][44] the shortest managerial stint in Sunderland's history.^[41] During his 12 games in charge of Sunderland, they won 4 games, drew 2 games, and lost 6 games, and scored 13 goals while conceding 16 goals.^[45][46] After his sacking, Beale was accused of using an anonymous "burner" account on Twitter during his tenure.^[47][48][49] The account had retweeted posts defending him and criticising the Sunderland fans and owners.^[50][51][52]

As of match played 17 February 2024