If I had my way, every goal Sunderland score would be like Jack Clarke’s team goal against Reading under Tony Mowbray a few years ago.
Every tackle would be like Trai Hume’s on Ben Brereton Diaz at Wembley, and every save would be like Craig Gordon’s against Bolton in 2010. Every performance would be as convincing and complete as the 7-0 against Oxford United under Peter Reid (although he thought we were poor in the first half) — and every defeat would be as inconsequential and painless as the five
we phoned in at the back end of last season.
But you know what? You can’t have it all, and when you’re in a division where you have to fight tooth and nail for everything, pragmatism wins the day.
Every. Single. Time.
As the full time whistle blew at Elland Road on Tuesday night, the fume, bluster and exasperation from Leeds United supporters had long since begun. “Shithouses!”, “Daylight robbery!” and “Football as a spectacle is dead!”
If it had been a computer game, Leeds United fans would 100% have switched the PlayStation off.
Word has it they’d have you believe you would need a VPN to watch Sunderland’s display under those much-vaunted Elland Road “Leedsghts” (yes, apparently that is a thing).
Apologies will be thin on the ground here, good people of West Yorkshire. God’s country has been sullied by a thousand cow pats from Régis Le Bris’ own satanic herd.
I’ll never ask for forgiveness for that, but a number did acknowledge that the sort of traits Sunderland showed were exactly what Leeds fans would’ve wanted from their own side.
It’s exactly what Sunderland needed after being on the other end of this behaviour against Fulham.
The difference between the home side ten days ago and midweek is that the Sunderland top brass noted this behaviour, wrote it down, learned from it and repeated it — to absolutely glorious effect. Leeds have in the main, simply moaned, but it covers up the fact their own display was insipid at best.
As 6.15pm ticked by and the teams were announced, the sight of Luke O’Nien lining up in defence was cause for celebration.
The final boss of the ‘dark arts’ and someone whose own playbook of antics is many and varied, his ability to produce a moment of time wasting and disruption is surely legendary: the kiss at Norwich, Alex Scott’s piggy back, wiping out the linesman and then flagging for a foul.
Because of this, we all knew what we would be in for that evening.
Now O’Nien can add “being booked for booting a rogue second ball further in play during the first half of the match”. Magical stuff which all served to disrupt, distract and frustrate. However, the fact that he was trusted to continue despite being on a yellow card was testament to his temperament and the faith Le Bris had in him.
In recent days, both Arne Slot and Ruud Gullit have talked about the state of the game in the current times, and expressed displeasure at the quality on show. Too many corners, not enough risk. Boring, stale, uninspiring — “I don’t watch football anymore”, huffed the Mary Poppins-bencher.
Now, those sentiments might all be true, but I don’t want Sunderland to play football to entertain the opposition fans or neutrals watching on television. We’re not there for others’ entertainment and I couldn’t care less about your Sky membership, your TNT subscription or your NOW TV pass.
Instead, I want them to enact a plan which gives the best chance of taking three points. And that’s exactly what they did on Tuesday night.
They had to get dirty and play the pantomime villains, and you know what? I loved every second of it. It wasn’t good football in the traditional sense, but it was attritional. The Lads were fighting; there was guile in abundance and a desire to win everything right from the pre-match coin toss.
What football fans tend to do is judge their team based on the in-possession moments — and what they do with the ball is king.
I’ll admit that what was done with the ball was average at best. However, it was Sunderland out of possession that was the most pleasing. The shape was perfect and we defended in a manner much more reminiscent of the early part of the season.
The clean sheet was welcome, but when you consider it was done with Melker Ellborg making his debut, Trai Hume out of position at left back and O’Nien making his first start and doing so without the comfort blanket of Granit Xhaka…well, it was nothing short of delightful, as Bobby Saxton might say.
As for the plan, it was very clearly get to sixty minutes level and bring Xhaka on. At that point, the python would well and truly get hold of its prey. It’s no surprise that Leeds were suffocated from that moment. Game over. The end.
All throughout, this campaign this club has been told it’s exceeding expectations, that things would level out and that we were defying those damn pesky underlying numbers. Rival fans and pundits told us so, and the stats nerds still trumpet it. Hell, the visitors’ fans have written the fact Sunderland will eventually revert to the mean on bedsheets, and draped them from the Tyne Bridge.
The fact is, though, that we’re here to stay now. Forty points with nine games to go isn’t achieved through luck — it’s done because there’s plan in place and a damn good one at that.
To flip it another way, you could say the only reason Sunderland have got the sort of results they have this season is because Le Bris has made changes at the right moments in games.
Therefore, there’s an argument to say he’s the best at in-game management in the whole division.
