There’s no denying that Saturday afternoon was probably as bad as it has gotten for us so far this season. We were, to be pretty blunt, crap.
We’re allowed to be crap occasionally, though, aren’t we? No team is perfect. We were expected to spectacularly struggle this season, and yet here we are, sitting as the only undefeated home side in the division. That’s why, about five minutes after full time, I was able to just shrug it off and look forward, not back.
Until heavy defeats become a habit, I’ll
not be panicking. And before someone says it, no, I’m not pontificating here — this is generally just my default position when it comes to Sunderland. I take the tag of ‘supporter’ incredibly seriously, sometimes to my own detriment, but I’ll always defend the club and the decisions they take if I think they’ve been taken in good faith.
That said, I was a little disappointed to see such an overwhelmingly hysterical reaction to the defeat after the game. I was also buoyed by reading some of the more sensible takes from fans who couldn’t understand why people were getting so carried away, but I’m sure anyone who took even just a cursory glance at the socials during and after Saturday’s game will have noted the way people took seeing Sunderland seriously underperform.
That’s not just limited to Sunderland and our fans, as fans of all clubs have this element, and it even goes beyond football — I think this is just a fact when it comes to general discourse in 2026. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be called out if you think something is wrong. I don’t and didn’t agree with some of the comments I saw about our young players, for instance, because we know that there’s a strong chance they’ll read them, and you can only wonder what that could do to their confidence. So, I’d always urge people to think twice about what they post, especially when it comes to young players who are just doing their best for Sunderland.
Anyways – that’s enough of that, I’ll stop wagging my finger and telling people what to do. For now, at least.
Reggie got it wrong at the London Stadium, and it’s not often that we’ve been able to say that, but it’s only fair to point out that he did. Although, as I said on the post-match reaction pod, when the team news dropped, I wasn’t alarmed by any of the players that he selected, so it’d be easy for me to be wise after the occasion, sitting here talking about how he shouldn’t have started Hume on the right or Mayenda up front. I thought the team he picked looked quite attacking and like a side that could go there and take it to West Ham early on, which I think was probably the plan.
What we did — and this isn’t something we really do under this manager — is we took a big gamble. We thought we could catch West Ham off guard by approaching things in a manner in which they hadn’t planned for, and as always, the club had things spoiled the night before when it was leaked that Granit Xhaka wouldn’t be starting the game. Still, they tried to keep people guessing by posting videos of him travelling with the team by train and then using his image to promote the match early in the morning. Still, I think by that point it had already gotten out that Granit was going to miss the match, and you have to imagine that got back to West Ham.
They were like a pack of Hyenas knowing our talisman was missing, and they smelled blood. I have to admit that this is something which worries me about the games coming up. With Granit Xhaka on the pitch, virtually everyone we face fears us, but without him, you can’t help but admit we are significantly weaker.
Do the club need to get a tighter grip on news leaking out? I’d say so. This isn’t the first time this season that a significant piece of team news has filtered through the fanbase on the eve of a game (it happened with Diarra too), and whilst people are keen to know what’s going on, the only people that it benefits are the teams we are facing, who get a leg up and know what to prepare for.
Along the same lines, it’s probably really important that in such a big week, a lid is kept on our transfer activity too. In the summer the club had several of their deals spoiled by staff members or freelancers who couldn’t keep things buttoned and it didn’t go down well — you might remember that pictures from Granit Xhaka’s photoshoot were leaked way before it was confirmed that he had signed, which you can imagine will have enraged people at the club who always want to deliver this information on their terms. Whether it’s team news or signings, if it’s within our control, we have to stop fuelling the social media rumour mill (and yes, guilty, we here at RR probably help to contribute to that too, but it’s not our job to contain it!) and keep things tight until it’s the right time to let people know — let’s see if that’s the case as the week progresses.
After a heavy defeat, you can imagine that it refocuses people. We won’t panic — I don’t think we’re about to make any rash changes in the transfer market as a result of losing one game of football — but it’s often said you learn a lot more about your team after a defeat, and that’s likely to be the case after West Ham, too. It may well be that question marks were hanging over several players, and minds have been made up in the wake of the game. It may well be that we were humming and harring over signing a quality additional midfield player with experience, but having seen how desperately we missed Granit on Saturday, we’ve realised that we need more options if we’re going to finish the season strongly. Let’s wait and see.
What’s true is that it’s going to be a bloody long week until we face Burnley. When you get tonked, I always think it’s better if we have another game quickly afterwards so we can just put things right, and I bet that the players in training this week will be absolutely itching to get back to it. However, the Academy of Light will also serve as a stage for significant change, with established and popular players like Dan Neil and Anthony Patterson expected to depart to continue their careers elsewhere. It seems inevitable that both men will leave, and whilst our focus should be on moving forward and to the next game, I do have to wonder what effect losing two popular lads will have on the dressing room. I’m sure their mates will be upset, but it’s all part of the process of growing as a club, and we’ve got to move on.
The end result, I hope, is that even greater players come through the door in their place and they slot in just as quickly as their contemporaries did over the summer.
