On this day, a chastening and embarrassing defeat at Gresty Road saw manager Mick McCarthy read the riot act to his team in the sixth game that Sunderland had only scored 5 in 8. Narrow wins, along with
some 0-0 stalemates, had seen McCarthy’s team lack prolificacy around this time in 2003, but it still left them in 5th place after this defeat.
In fairness to McCarthy’s side, they were playing all the football in the first half. Jeff Whitley nearly scored his first goal for the us inside the first 60 seconds, but he could not convert Alan Quinn’s cross from close range.
Following that, Quinn had a 12th-minute shot of his own charged down by Stephen Foster and seconds later, keeper Clayton Ince was called into action again to push away Stephen Wright’s fierce 20-yard effort for a corner.
Irishman Colin Healy then had a 25-yard volley blocked by Foster, with the Crewe goalkeeper making a follow-up save to stop Marcus Stewart.
It was almost obvious that we were going to be made to pay for these missed chances, and ten minutes into the second half, the team utterly imploded, conceding three goals, with Dean Ashton notching one along with a double for Steve Foster.
The way the team completely fell apart was concerning, and Sunderland defender George McCartney revealed that his manager gave the whole squad a dressing down after the final whistle at Gresty Road.
It’s not happening for us at the minute.
We’ve just got to keep on putting in good performances and it has to come to an end. We can change it.
It’s an understatement to say the manager was annoyed after. He gave us a tongue lashing. He knows what we should have got out of the game and so do the players, but it wasn’t to be.
It was a devastating two-minute spell that was our downfall. We were playing really well up until then.
We’ve failed to score in six out of the last eight games and the whole team’s got to keep plugging away. If the strikers aren’t scoring it’s up to the defenders to keep a clean sheet and we didn’t do that.
One can only imagine what an angry Mick McCarthy is like, but it would actually take us another five games to pick up a victory as the team went on to draw the next three and then lose to West Ham at Upton Park before results began to pick up rapidly as we went on a title charge that fell only short at the final hurdle.
