Xhaka’s Enormous Influence
The one thing that every Sunderland fan feared came true on Friday evening, as rumours swirled throughout the Sun’lun social media echochamber that Granit Xhaka would miss the game. That was confirmed
when the lineup was announced – and in spite of travelling down with the team, the captain was missing from the graphic.
He exacerbated a knock on his ankle that he had been playing through while the AFCON lads were all still away in the tournament and missed out yesterday. He’s expected to miss out on Burnley at home on Monday night, too, and then can be reassessed to return.
He leads the team both literally and metaphorically on and off the pitch. Topping pretty much all passing, creativity and running metrics in the entire team. When there is a gap, he fills it. When someone is out of position, he corrects it. When someone is under pressure, he moves into space to provide relief and recycle play.
Against West Ham, we didn’t have him knitting us together and finding openings. Mateus Fernandes was allowed to dictate play, and you could tell from the off that West Ham’s tails were up from just purely reading the team news – and of course they were. Just as ours would have been should news have broken if the same had happened to Jarrod Bowen for the hosts.
We’ll need to find a way to play without him, because this will likely happen again next week against Burnley, and as he ages will only happen more in the future.
Poor Team Selection
I really feel for Trai Hume, the stand-in captain on the day. His first time captaining Sunderland in the Premier League. Yet, unfortunately, he repeatedly gave the ball away and then conceded a penalty through a poor and unnecessary challenge. But this isn’t on him. Trai has risen with Sunderland from League One and has been a warrior in red and white for us.
I can really see why Le Bris has played him in right midfield before, having done so effectively against Liverpool, Brighton and Palace this season. But it really stifles our creativity on the right-hand side.
Additionally, choosing to play a flat four across midfield in a 4-4-2 with two strikers and not bringing in a direct replacement as a six to shore up gaps and try to cover Xhaka’s omission was a brave, but incorrect call. Regis understood this, making a triple substitution at half-time, as Noah Sadiki was then tasked with being the player to step into the captain’s shoes – repeatedly lining up as almost a third central defender and massively aiding our ability to progress the ball out of defence and stem the opposition from flooding into the channels behind our midfield four.
While formations are very fluid in modern football, most teams pay far less heed to them than we do as fans, the same patterns that emanate within a game are clear for us all to see, and the major issue was Bowen, Summerville and Pablo dropping into that space where Xhaka is usually dominant.
I think we all expected Lutsharel Geertruida to start in a straight swap, and I wish he had. The attacking intent from Regis away from home was brave, and actually quite uncharacteristic of his usual approach, and it certainly did not work in a very poor first-half performance.
Habib Diarra & Promising Changes
The changes at half time really did change the game. We looked far more fluid and dangerous, with Brobbey less isolated. The key to this was Habib Diarra.
He was deployed right alongside Brobbey in an attacking role, but as a midfielder playing up there had a natural inclination to drop in as a midfielder to support, whereas Mayenda would look to just peel off to the right and in behind.
Diarra completed 92% of his passes, created the goal and had more touches in the final third than Mayenda, Mundle and Hume combined. His runs from deep to get us up the pitch helped us break through what was a physical West Ham side, the midfield struggled with in the first half, without him, Xhaka and Geertruida.
He linked up excellently with Enzo Le Fee, as the pair played their most minutes on a pitch together this season. Just a quick word on Enzo, he again was our best player today in that poor first half, one of a few glimmers of hope.
Brian Brobbey
The other glimmer of hope was Brobbey up top – he has now scored three goals in his last four games and battled all game. Constantly pinning Mavropanos and Todibo to get us up the pitch. He received almost zero service, but the goal he scored was excellent.
In fact, it’s irritating; it means nothing as it’s one of the best team goals we’ve scored this season. Diarra’s small delay, sprint then through ball to Nordi, who ran the length of the pitch to again play in a perfect low cross was outstanding football.
It’s just a shame it meant nothing, as all of his previous goals directly gained us points from behind this season.
London Stadium
It may come across as slightly bitter, but thank God we have the Stadium of Light.
For some insane reason, there is just a massive empty space in the middle of the two tiers in what is a pretty soulless ground with very little West Ham branding, smack bang in the middle of nowhere (somehow, this is possible even in London), and you can see just why their fans absolutely hate the place.
Apparently, it was their best atmosphere of the season (makes sense), but even then, it just didn’t feel right. Their fans did sing, and it was loud at times. But it felt like every bit of noise just evaporated out of the athletics bowl into an ether to fly past that weird helter-skelter without a slide structure/sculpture/big thing. Down at the Boleyn Ground. It was intimidating. It was loud. The place felt alive. I even say this considering the last time I went, a bloke called Ilan scored – aye, I can’t really remember him either.
