It’s Finger Pointing Time

Article by e-Sunderland Correspondent Ben Mummery

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Following last night’s frankly, humiliating defeat at home to West Ham, fans of Sunderland football club seem to be accepting the inevitable fact that our club is now relegated.

A blunt assessment, but there isn’t any way one can see a way out of the awful situation we find ourselves in.

Having spent large amounts of money, time, and effort supporting their team through a painful premier league champagne, fans are entitled to aim the finger of blame at someone, especially given fifty five minutes of the most painful display I think we’ve been treat to all term, which we were forced to endure last night.

So where do we start?

It’s so hard, and one doesn’t want to blame the manager for our problems. After the turmoil that our erstwhile Italian dictator created at the beginning of the season, it is a credit to Gus Poyet that we have at least been in positions to give ourselves a fighting chance of survival. However, there have been some baffling decisions with team selections of late, and while we the fans are not privy to the daily goings on of the club and the training ground, many fans have been left utterly bewildered at some of the boss’ starting lineups. His insistence to play Fabio Borini wide left, his leaving out Adam Johnson, playing three central defenders at home, to name but a few.

The Uruguayan’s style and brand of football is undoubtedly the right way to play the game, and there have definitely been massive improvements in some areas of the field, but it’s become painfully obvious that he does not have the quality in his squad to play the sort of game he wants to, and he seems to have been unable to adjust or come up with a plan B.

Ultimately, the manager can only do so much. He cannot cross the white line and play the game, as much as we would probably all like him to, and the players themselves must shoulder a massive amount of the responsibility for our situation.

The team are simply carrying too many passengers in their ranks. A combination of foreign players who have simply not adapted to the standard of the premier league (Giaccherinni, Virgini, Scocco et al), and some players who it has to be said, just are not good enough, regardless of the amount of effort they put in. Messes Altidore, Wickham, Cattermole, Gardner, Fletcher, have simply come up well short of the required standard for Premier League football this season. Our stand out players such as Bardsley, Brown, Johnson and O’Shea, have given their all, but three or four players carrying the rest of the team will not keep a side in the top tier of English football, and our best players, Ki and Borini, are on loan and look likely to leave when the club is doomed to relegation.

There are honourable mentions to be made to the likes of Marcus Alonso, and Liam Bridcutt, who have done their best since coming in January, however fitting into a struggling side and making a season-changing impact is such a huge ask for any player.

The players must bourdon their share of the blame of course, but let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture before we dam an entire team to hell:

Last March, after sacking Martin O’Neil, the board of directors, lead ultimately by Ellis Short, saw fit to make a drastic change to the management of the first team, and appointed the controversial and eccentric Italian Paolo Di Canio. This was presumably designed to be a stark contrast to O’Neil’s style of management, and was a decision met with the very much divided opinion of the fans. The “fiery” new boss came with a reputation for being electric on the touch line, kicking and heading every ball of the game from the dugout, and reports of him publicly berating and scalding his players left supporters wondering about what the long term plan was for the club. Was this man to see the season out and leave? Would he be the sort of spark the club needed to ignite a sterile environment and save the season? The decision was certainly a massive role of the dice and a gamble on behalf of the board.

After thrashing the mags in the away leg of the derby, and managing, somewhat dangerously, to steer the club to safety (even if apparently upsetting some senior players and causing many waves in the camp while doing so), the board then saw fit to persevere with Di Canio into the new season.

They appointed football agent and former Inter director of football Roberto De Fanti to oversee transfers and player recruitment, and provided the new boss with a total of fourteen new signings in the summer window, a move criticised by many as too extreme. Controversy continued to emerge from the Sunderland camp, with reports of more and more ridiculous measures and rules being put into place around the training ground and facilities that served only to anger senior players and bemuse fans.

The first seven games of the season spoke volumes for Di Canio’s management style, as Sunderland slumped to the bottom of the league table, with a solitary point, away against Southampton.

This was a start that would require a miracle to recover from. Poyet’s first game saw a four nil thrashing away to Swansea, and going into the Tyne Wear derby as ninth game of the season, only one other team had ever survived having reached that stage of the season with as many points – or should I say “point”.

The board’s decision making must be harshly critiqued by all concerned. Di Canio was an enormous gamble, which paid off in the short term, but realistically, was never going to work in the long term. One wonders where the club would be now, had Poyet been appointed in the summer, and allowed to have his way from the start of the season? The managerial appointments and disruption that come with them, are entirely the decisions of the board of directors and their staff, and ultimately, the transfer activity comes down to the same individuals.

Having set us up to fail from the start, the January window was disappointing, with a handful of players coming in, none of which could be classed as the sort of marquee signings we desperately needed. Goals have been the sticking point for the team all term, and it was clear to all concerned that the club needed to be competitive in the Striker market, and land a man capable of bagging the much needed goals in the second half of the campaign.

The long and short of it: the board have provided the manager and his staff with a sub-par collection of players to pick his team from, a group not fitting with the standard required in the harshest, most competitive league in the world.

This writer’s personal opinion is that relegation could be a blessing in disguise for Sunderland football club. A year or two in the championship will provide us with a few opportunities to get our house in order, take a step back, and take a much needed reality check of the sort of club we are, which I personally believe we’ve lost sight of. Sunderland has always been a club which bases it’s football around hard work, indeed the club is very much a working man’s football club, as the area it is in would suggest. The team must be based around graft, industry, and most of all a desire to succeed. Relegation will see some of the wheat separated from the chaff as far as players are concerned, and we will see who retains the desire to stay and fight for the club’s promotion, as well as being offered the chance to bring in players with the heart and desire to show how good they can be.

It has worked for last night’s opponents West Ham, and for our neighbours Newcastle, who have both been down and come back stronger, and when the inevitable happens, it will be back to the drawing board, and time to rebuild from the ground up for the Black Cats, who will be served a timely reminder that Premier League status is not a right, it must be earned.

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