James Elliott says…
When the season started, I think it’s fair to say that staying in the Premier League was the main objective. Despite some mixed results recently, we’ve done incredibly well adapting to the top division, and I’m incredibly proud to support and watch this team each week.
For me, the remainder of the season is a free hit. I believe we’re virtually safe from the drop, and it’s a great opportunity for the squad to attack the second half of the campaign without a relegation battle weighing on their minds.
It’s also worth noting that all three newly promoted sides from each of the past two seasons have been relegated, and I think we’re in a great position to buck that trend.
Given our current league position, something major would have to go wrong for us to finish that low, and that would be frustrating.
That said, it would still absolutely be a successful season, as we’ve fulfilled the main objective we set out to achieve — survival!
John Wilson says…
I think everyone just wanted to survive this season, and be able to build on that with more investment and development for our second season. The incomings last summer, as everyone now knows, have gelled fantastically, and had a lot of fans talking about a possible European spot.
Predictions are quite often a fool’s game, so most people were happy to trot out the mantra — “17th position will be a success”. The trouble is, predictions will fluctuate depending on any given situation. One has to adapt one’s hopes and thoughts, given what has already occurred. So that being said, after reaching the dizzy heights of the top 5, and then mostly in the top 10, I don’t think we can say that 17th is a success anymore. It will be satisfactory I suppose, but not a success given the start we’ve had. To finish that low now would mean we’d have to have had a very poor second half to the season. That would raise question marks about players’ mentality, staying power, consistency and attitude. Now I don’t think that will happen. The back-room staff, head coach, and indeed our captain and other senior players, won’t let that happen. But because of that great start, I think anything below 12th will be slightly disappointing from our current position.
An analogy that springs to mind would be investing money or visiting a casino. If your intention was to raise £50,000 (say) and you quickly saw your assets rise to £100,000 — if you then came out with said £50,000, I think you’d be a little annoyed that you hadn’t protected that higher amount. Achieving your initial goal could then be conceived as a slight failure?
In a way, it’s a win-win for RLB and the lads, because once we reach that 40-point target that keeps getting mentioned, hopefully we can relax a little and enjoy our football. Of course, there’s always a flip side, and maybe reaching our first points target could result in a collapse of focus and effort! Like I say, I don’t think that will happen. I think we’ll finish in the top 12 at least, and therefore from my perspective, a 17th spot (whilst still not being a disaster) would nevertheless be disappointing.
Nic Wiseman says…
After the play-off final in May, I remember walking along the South Bank towards the Southwark Brewing Company, which is owned by Sunderland fan Peter Jackson. My head was buzzing. I was with about five other Sunderland fans and I couldn’t quite get over the elation of what had happened that day and the manner in which it had happened. Then it dawned on us: what the hell are we going to do now?
We’ve got there, but none of us were under the illusion that the team who were second best in that final for the first three-quarters of the game would have a cat in hell’s chance of surviving in the Premier League.
Little did we know then what we know now. That the club would proceed to conduct one of the most effective spending sprees any club has seen. Ever. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that.
So to ask what my expectations were then, walking along the Thames on that May evening, are an entirely different thing to what I would hope for now.
On that evening, not knowing we were about to break the club’s transfer record on multiple occasions, I would have snapped your hand off for 17th place.
But the club has spoilt us fans by doing so well in the first 23 games of the season, that anything less than a top-half finish would be a bit of a disappointment. Or even having a punt at Europe.
The league is so congested this season that we’re only four points off a Champions League place, but a fairly hefty 13 points above the drop zone.
I think even the most pessimistic of supporters must now accept that we aren’t going down. I think now it’s to push on and do as well as we can. With players like Granit Xhaka and Nordi Mukiele in the team, they didn’t come to Sunderland just to scrape 17th place. They are driven and want to achieve as much as possible. They were sold a project and finishing just above the drop zone was not in that vision.
So to answer the question, I think a 17th-place finish would be a tremendous anti-climax.
