French poet Paul Valéry famously claimed that “the best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up”. Last night, all of Sunderland woke up; a sleeping giant woke up, and Wearside’s collective dreams came true. It was a historic night, from the bedlam in the town and the Roker End concourse pre-game, to the wonderful This is Wearside display, and ultimately, attaining the victory on our first European outing in 53 years.
AZ Alkmaar were the visitors, led by young sensation Kees Smit and star player
Ro-Zangelo Daal. It was far from an easy task; the Dutch European ever-presents are currently in their 17th consecutive season in European competition, are the Pot 1 home draw for Sunderland and, at the time of playing, sat joint-top of the Eredivisie after an unbeaten league start.
It was a pulsating game, the Lads dominated the first-half but AZ often go deep in European competition and gave us a real game in the second 45. They are an excellent side, are rightfully Pot 1 and I have a sneaking suspicion this may well be our hardest game of the entire League phase, on paper.
First of all, a few interesting facts from the game:
- Before the game, Sunderland players’ 131 combined Europa League appearances is the highest-ever by a team making its debut in the competition.
- Granit Xhaka’s 63 Europa League appearances rank among the top nine in competition history.
- AZ have lost all 12 European away matches against English opposition by an aggregate of 32-9.
- Before this game, AZ won all four away matches this season, scoring 13 goals in the process.
Le Fee’s Magic
In a midweek interview with the dancing bald journalist who rarely ventures south of the Tyne, Enzo Le Fee admitted that if he wasn’t a footballer, there is a good chance he may have been a magician. In that deduction, Le Fee was wrong. He is a magician. Thus far this season at the SoL, most of his chief creative moments and play have come when he shifted out wide, but last night everything Sunderland did well was through him.
His combined xG and xGA was 1.75 – higher than every other player on the pitch combined. He hit the post, had four shots on goal (two on target), won and converted a penalty and saw a long-range rasper of a shot fly just narrowly wide (although most in the north-west corner seemed to have been fooled by the way it hit the net and thought it went in).
He won 12 duels during the course of the match, the most on the pitch (double more than Sunderland’s next best, Sadiki at six), including winning 80% of ground duels, was fouled four times and completed 100% of his successful dribbles. When he is in this sort of form, he is unplayable.
He had our first chance of the game, using his pace to latch onto a wonderful long ball from Nordi Mukiele (more on him later) and then, later in the same attack, almost put it on a plate for Wilson Isidor, who was agonisingly close to converting. Isidor then almost repaid the favour after a lovely swivel on his marker and cut-back to Le Fee, who then cracked the stanchion with the goal gaping.
Not long later, he showed his versatility after drifting wide right and looping in a brilliant cross on his right foot this time, only for the away side’s keeper to clear well. Early in the second half, he once again fed Isidor with an absolutely wonderful, deft chip in behind to Isidor’s path, who slashed at his shot and sliced it wide by the near post.
His next, and most meaningful, contribution was the goal. Noah Sadiki broke well from an AZ set-piece, timed his pass to Le Fee perfectly, who jinked his defender and was taken out as the goal was gaping. As his song reverberated around the stadium, he stood motionless. Once again, at the Roker End, just four days after seeing a decisive penalty saved against Arsenal. His response? To slot home in the same spot where David Raya saved his prior spot-kick. Le Fee has had a difficult upbringing, and has openly spoken about his troubles as a younger player when he found his father Jeremy after his suicide. He is no stranger to adversity, and showed that he probably has the biggest balls on Wearside by once again overcoming demons of his past to stick that ball exactly in the same spot again, this time successfully.
The only downside to his performance was a loose pass early on that Smit intercepted, but if not for this, it could have easily been a well-deserved 10/10 performance.
Big Kev
Although Fofana stole all the headlines on deadline day, our signing of the summer may well turn out to be Big Kevin Danso on loan (with an option to buy) from Spurs for the season. Despite Spurs’ defensive struggles over the last two years, their fans were largely gutted to see the news of his departure; he’s slotted straight in as first-choice central defender and has been imperious.
AZ only had ten shots, and one shot on target during the game, but Danso led all players in defensive contributions (12), including two tackles, one block, two recoveries, and seven clearances. His ball retention is elite, and his passing is sharp over five and fifty yards.
One interesting moment was when Omar Alderete was taken off for big Dan Ballard. While I understand Alderete would have been frustrated to be withdrawn, he had just picked up a slight knock, was clearly tired, and on a yellow after being given a proper run-around by AZ’s striker, Mexx Meerdink. Naturally, due to his disappointment, he took an age getting off the pitch. Yet the game was not won at that time; we were still level at 0-0 and certainly deserved the win. Danso took offence to this, and physically pushed Alderete to give him the hurry-up. I wouldn’t really dwell on this too much, but it just shows Danso is another character in the squad with extremely high standards and competitive will to win. Regis Le Bris, after the game, confirmed the Alderete sub was due to “tiredness”.
He almost scored after attempting to deflect a Xhaka long-range shot, read the game so well throughout and one late goal-line clearance was just outstanding defending.
Danso was brought off late for Chris Rigg as we saw a reshuffle. Nordi moved into central defence (who has probably been our player of the season so far, by the way) while Thomas Meunier dropped to right-back. Hopefully this is just game management from Le Bris, as we’ll need big Kev at the weekend up against Haaland and company.
Oh, and who knew he has an absolute rocket of a right foot? I don’t know if this UEFA/Decathlon KIPSTA ball has an edge of a Jabulani about it, but the swerve on that long-range shot in the first half was absolutely wild and looked destined to go in. I do know these balls have far fewer panels than the Puma ones in the Premier League, and akin to the Jabulani, they are thermobonded, so they have a genuinely spherical construction – so maybe one to watch in ensuing game weeks.
What a signing.
Lack of Clinicality
It was another game this season where we dramatically outscored our opponents on xG (2.90 – 1.49), outshot our opponents (20-11), and in every game this season we have created more big chances and limited the opposition to five or fewer shots on target (just one tonight for AZ).
However, we really need to take our chances. We genuinely could have been 4-0 up at half-time. Not creating chances is a very worrying trend, and we are not doing that. However, we do need to take these chances. Isidor should have scored twice, Enzo should have scored twice, Brobbey should have scored, Mukiele should have scored, and I have no idea how Nilson Angulo didn’t score his big chance after Brobbey served it up on a Michelin-star plate.
The performances are good. The creativity is there. The underlying numbers are the best we’ve seen as a trending pattern since promotion, but we’ve still only scored three goals in four games at home this season, and have missed glaring chances in every single game this season.
The goals will come. But ideally far sooner rather than later. This is a team that is a slight work in progress due to the late work in the transfer window and transitioning to a more attacking side, but we just need patience. With the amount we are currently creating, the goals will come.
Le Bris spoke well on this matter in his post-match interviews:
“It’s good to create chances, to impose the rhythm, to impose the game we want to play.
“Now it’s just a question of details. We have to keep pushing because we are in a good place, I would say. Obviously, in the Europa League, in the Premier League, when you don’t score, you know the opponent will react because they have good players, they can combine. They can individually create chances as well, so you also need good players at the right moments.
“I don’t know [about the late chance], I think when you are in this situation, maybe there is a a small doubt. You are not really clean and you overthink. It’s a question just of time, I think, because we will score.”
