Sunderland slipped into the relegation zone of the Premier League for the first time since the 2016/2017 season at the weekend, putting in a timid display in a match which had the hallmarks of an early season ‘six-pointer’.
We travelled to a side without a win in the league yet this season — and my God, Bournemouth must’ve been delighted when, after less than twenty minutes, we’d shot ourselves in the foot.
The issue is that it’s not the first time this season we’ve been our own worst enemy, but with games continuing to come thick and fast, we need to stop making it such a costly habit.
Watching the game back, we looked sluggish and clumsy on the ball with no creativity outside or up top. Goals weren’t our strong point last season, but at least we had a solid defence which at times would rather die than let the ball get within striking distance of the goal.
We’ve lost that this season other than on a couple of occasions, and now we look as weak as piss at the back and toothless up top. Some might say this is a recipe for disaster — and they’d be right.
If we had £1 for every time one of our wingers had the ball and instead of going at the full back they turned around and played the ball back to a defender, we’d probably be able to go out and buy a winger that wouldn’t do this.
I’ll caveat this and say this may be the attitude of wingers short on confidence, or it may be instruction from a head coach who often remains stubborn when it comes to changing the way we play. Whatever it is, it’s bloody frustrating and at times, it’s like watching paint dry.
We’ve undoubtedly missed Brian Brobbey, but we simply can’t be reliant on one player to not just score goals but to make things happen for us. With Wilson Isidor or Timur Tutierov up top, we’ve looked like we have ten men and haven’t tried to play them into games.
The defeats to Arsenal and Manchester City were promising, as they showed us battling for long periods.
The Brighton match was a non-event on our part and the 2-0 loss down at Bournemouth was nothing short of pathetic. We can’t have more performances like that and hope to give ourselves a fighting chance of getting our season kickstarted.
Rallying cries have been in short supply since full time on Sunday, but the words from Nordi Mukiele and Robin Roefs brought some comfort. This slump needs to be a wake-up call, and I don’t care if it’s naivety, complacency or something else — it’s not good enough for what we want to see in a Sunderland team.
I’ll caveat this by saying we’ve had our injury issues, but I do this begrudgingly. Many teams in the league have players missing and do just fine. If there’s fragility within the squad, it needs rooting out now.
After Lech Poznan, we have two huge games in which we should be going hell for leather in. Once on the other side of these matches and when November arrives, we’ll see if this was the case and if there’s still fight in this set of players.