When it’s felt like nothing short of 9,635 days since our glorious victory against the ‘hosts’/‘visitors’, you’re left with a significant amount of time to think about our next match.
International friendlies, although traditionally notoriously dull, have proven to be even more meaningless, with even the players themselves deeming them as optional events to take part in. With the exception of Southampton vs Arsenal, the FA Cup quarter-finals have been equally as tiresome, with the majority of games
feeling like somewhat of a procession.
Simply put, there’s nothing that compares to watching Sunderland.
What can we do, therefore, when there’s such a hefty gap between matches?
After rewatching most of the highlights from the last twelve months, I thought it’d be beneficial to revisit our first visit to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. What can we learn from the away game — and apart from Richarlison being offside at least five times on Sunday, and an inevitable red card for Cristian Romero, is there anything else that we can expect to see?
Although we would argue that any point away from home is a good one, with the power of retrospect, it feels like we wasted an opportunity when we last played Tottenham.
Given what’s happened to their season since, with their third manager of the campaign about to take charge against us, I’m certain that Régis Le Bris will have the team motivated. Our previously impressive home form has dipped during recent games and this is the perfect opportunity to put things right — especially if we think back to what Le Bris said to the BBC post-match in January…
The first half we were a bit flat, without energy.
That could be understandable after the Manchester City Game, which was really tough and demanding.
This time, things are quite the opposite.
We’ve had a welcome break, despite my complaints about lack of things to do. Colossal players that’ve been unable to feature in recent games — including Dan Ballard, Robin Roefs and Nordi Mukiele, to name a few — have had time to recover and I’m hopeful that they’ll be featuring in what’s going to be a crucial run to the end of the season.
Not only that, but we’re riding on the high of beating our biggest rivals after dominating in the second half, so I’d be expecting a strong start from the Lads on Sunday afternoon.
To support this, however, we need to bring back the atmosphere that’s synonymous with battling performances and whilst the performance against Newcastle should rightly be celebrated, we do need to remember that the atmosphere at recent home games has been somewhat flat.
Our challenge should be to channel that winning feeling against the Mags into a daunting atmosphere for Spurs — regardless of who’s in the dugout or who is on the pitch.
Are Tottenham — currently languishing in seventeenth position and facing a genuine threat of relegation — going to be able to take anything from us if we’re able to recreate the cauldron of noise that we saw against West Ham, Arsenal or Manchester City? I appreciate that not every home game can resembling the playoff semi-final second leg against Coventry, but I know that we can stay until the end and make things as unpleasant as possible for Spurs.
What makes this game particularly interesting, though, is the appearance of Roberto De Zerbi — undoubtedly a fantastic manager.
In previous years, I would see it as a bit of a ‘typical Sunderland’ situation to be the guinea pigs for a new manager’s debut. However, there are some things to consider and in 2022, after joining mid-season, Brighton under De Zerbi failed to win any of their first five games, with two draws and three losses.
At the beginning of a season, this isn’t too catastrophic.
We’ve all seen teams, including Sunderland, experience dips in the season and fail to win. The problem comes when you’re managing a team with confidence at an all-time low, and De Zerbi’s system, which appears to very much be focused on high risk and high reward, is something that I would hope we can take advantage of.
One thing that I found particularly impressive against Newcastle was how Le Bris triggered the press at the right moments, creating vast amounts of space for our midfield. With 47,000 potentially in attendance against Spurs, the spine of our squad closer to returning and our opposition seemingly on the ropes, we should see the same this weekend.
Finally, there’s another factor we need to consider ahead of Sunday: Brian Brobbey.
His goal against Spurs, lashing the ball into the top corner after a brilliant bit of interplay with Enzo Le Fee, was absolutely superb, but it feels like we now have an evolved version of Brobbey as he bullies centre backs mercilessly and is undoubtedly one of the first names on the team sheet.
I’m looking forward to seeing how he performs — not only against ill-disciplined defenders like Romero — but against one of two goalkeepers who are giving Lee Camp and Jason Steele a run for their money, as it’s likely that Guglielmo Vicario is missing for our match due to injury.
This leaves Antonin Kinsky.
If we can imagine Michael Beale’s bizarre blanking of Trai Hume amplified by several thousand in front of a global audience of millions, we get an insight into Igor Tudor’s Victorian man-management of Kinsky against Atlético Madrid.
Looking fairly bereft of confidence from the first minute, he committed several errors under pressure, conceding three goals in fifteen minutes before being brutally substituted.
Whilst he’s now working under a different manager, this is somewhat irrelevant. We need to put instant pressure on the goalkeeper during set pieces and look to take advantage of his fragile confidence. This should be a perfect opportunity for Brobbey to continue his excellent form and to be relentless against a notoriously poor defence.
As both Le Bris and Granit Xhaka have said, our target now is to get as many points as possible and to see where the next three games take us.
If we can combine our tactical discipline with a suffocating home atmosphere after 7,000 years away, we’ll doubtless be able to silence the ‘new manager bounce’ narrative. I want the reports to focus on how Sunderland were far too disciplined, far too organised and far too loud to let any more points slip away at home.
Over to you, lads…
