A lot has been written about where Peter Reid’s era as Sunderland manager began to slide. Was it Niall Quinn declining with age? Or was it the sale of Don Hutchison to West Ham? The truth is that it was a combination
of many things that once again became a missed opportunity in the history of Sunderland AFC. After two years of hitting the dizzy heights of 7th in the Premier League, the 2001-02 season was the warning. For a third season in a row, we slid down the table in the second half of the season. In those first two years, we slid from second or third in the table, but this time we sat 9th ahead of a trip to Ipswich Town on the 29th of December, with an opportunity to climb higher. A 5-0 defeat followed at Portman Road, and we won just three in the second 19 games of the season to end up just one place and four points ahead of Ipswich, who occupied the third relegation spot ahead of Derby County and bottom-of-the-table Leicester City. Everyone willed this to be a one-off for Reid, and we’d get it right next time around, but we started off with just Stephen Wright and Phil Babb making their debut in a goalless draw at Graeme Souness’ Blackburn Rovers. Matt Piper – an exciting winger from Leicester City signed for £3.5m – was the next debutant in the following game that ended in a 1-0 defeat at home to David Moyes’ Everton. A victory at Leeds United followed to pick things up, and then came Reid’s final roll of the dice.
Tore André Flo was signed from Rangers on the same day as Marcus Stewart joined from relegated Ipswich to solve the problem of helping Kevin Phillips provide the goals. Flo made his debut at the Stadium of Light against Manchester United and scored the equaliser in the game that saw Roy Keane sent off after some choice words with Jason McAteer.
By the time our trip to Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal came around, we had won two and lost four of the first eight and were hovering above the bottom three. Ahead of the trip to the capital, the bookies offered 16/1 that Sunderland would pull off a surprise and claim all three points, which was fairly generous considering our start to the season.
The writing was on the wall after just three minutes when Thomas Sørensen palmed a Thierry Henry corner to Nwankwo Kanu, who finished to open the scoring. Five minutes later, the lead was doubled when Freddie Ljungberg sent Ashley Cole down the left, and the England full-back crossed for Kanu to double his tally for the afternoon when he headed home.
Moments later, it got worse when Sørensen was stretchered off after a clash with Henry and his defenders, which saw Thomas Myhre replace him with less than twenty minutes on the clock. Arsenal went into second gear and waited until just before the break to make it three when Myhre saved a Wiltord free-kick, but it was Vieira who reacted first and put the game out of sight.
Predictably, Reid wasn’t happy with the performance:
Two down after four minutes last year, it was a slight improvement to be two down after ten. We haven’t made them work. I must be speaking Swahili because the message didn’t get through. We made it ever so difficult for ourselves. At this level you can’t do it. In our defence we have six players out, and with our squad it’s very difficult. But when you put out eleven players you expect them to do better.
Two days later, Reid was gone, and the question was who was next. The two favourites were David O’Leary and Mick McCarthy – we ended up taking a different path, however.
FA Carling Premiership
Highbury
Arsenal 3-1 Sunderland
[Kanu 3’, 9’, Viera 45’ – Craddock 83’]
Sunderland: Sorensen (Myhre), Williams, Craddock, Babb, Kilbane, Thirlwell (Piper), Reyna, McCann, Arca, Bellion, Flo (Quinn) Substitute not used: McCartney, Stewart
Arsenal: Seaman, Lauren, Campbell, Cygan, Cole, Wiltord (Edu), Viera, Gilberton, Ljungberg (Toure), Kanu, Henry (Jeffers) Substitute not used: Taylor, Luzhny
Attendance: 37,902
