Watching Arsenal in the FA Cup at Nigel Clough’s Mansfield Town on Saturday reminded me that the task we were due to take on the following day at Port Vale wasn’t going to be easy.
It was fun to watch as a neutral, but just as Mansfield reached their peak levels of hope, Arteta sadistically introduced Eze, who got bored of messing about and smashed one in from the edge of the box. As you watched it all play out it felt inevitable, even though the Premier League leaders looked second best for a lot
of the game.
But we didn’t have an Eze, or any real desire to attempt anything like that – and it does sting a little. To put into context, Sunderland have reached the last eight on only four occasions since I was born (I’m in my forties so averaging once a decade by the way).
For fans, these cup runs can become life events and we don’t do it enough considering that crap record I mentioned in those years I’ve inhabited this small planet. I remember the impact it had when we got to the final in 1992, when in an age of cup final naff memorabilia, it adorned shop windows everywhere you looked. I say all this to emphasise that nobody is going to trivialise the defeat to Port Vale – this was a huge opportunity squandered.
And not only was the result crap, but the performance wasn’t good enough in terms of quality, and without taking anything away from Port Vale – because they deserved to go through and were brilliant – we weren’t up for it. And this is the real sad part about the weekend.
We’ve been so proud of the Lads this season because they’ve put everything into every game. Every loose ball has been contested like it meant everything, every header, every block – we’ve understood the significance of wanting it more than our opponents. At Port Vale, for one of the very few occasions this season, we didn’t fancy the fight.
It could well be a coincidence, but this has come days after reaching the magical forty-point mark – this season’s main objective. It could easily have as much to do with the state of the pitch, the early kick-off, or the mentality that all we had to do was turn up.
But that brings us on to the overarching point that we can be p*ssed off at losing out on potential cup glory and the potential reasons why – but yet still know we’re in a good place.
Looking back to when Parky did a job on us back in 2015, we were a bit of a mess. The run to the last sixteen on that occasion was the world’s smallest torch running out of batteries at the end of a ridiculously large tunnel – this isn’t that.
We’re still only four points behind Brentford who sit seventh in the table, and with some of the big boys still in the bag for the FA Cup quarter-final, who knows what positions will finally qualify for European competition next year – the point being is that there’s still a lot to play for, not least a trip to take on the visitors.
When you speak to people about this season, it’s up there with one of everyone’s favourites, especially coming off the back of the play-offs and last summer. We had the opening day against West Ham, winning at Stamford Bridge, going toe-to-toe with Citeh and Arsenal, taking three points off them up the road – it’s given us memories that will stay with us forever.
We have the potential to go places. We have people running the club who are able to use these setbacks to identify how we get better and avoid them in the future.
This is a long road we’re on. Look at Brighton, Fulham, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Brentford – and there’s probably more I could have listed – who have to fight for every point to remain in the comfort of mid-table in the Premier League. This year is the first step we have to take and we’ve completed the first objective with nine games to go.
Losing at Port Vale was beyond crap, and there’ve been times where this has not been true – but the players will be feeling this loss as much as the fans. Questions will be asked of the whys and the hows, but this group of players have the credit in the bank to know it was one of those days.
This is a day to forget in a season to remember – let’s not lose sight of that.
