As Lads’ fans, we’ve become accustomed to recriminations, finger-pointing and animated discussions whenever the team hits a poor run of form or begins to look somewhat jaded and short of ideas and creativity.
It happened in League One, it happened in the Championship, and now, for the first time, it’s happening in the Premier League as spring approaches and the season enters its final stages. Sunday’s loss to Fulham — by far the most dead-eyed and witless red and white display of the season — was
hardly the ideal precursor to the opening of the season ticket renewal window, and was entirely more deflating than the preceding defeat to Liverpool.
OK, we’ve got enough points on the board to feel relatively comfortable — albeit with some work still to be done in order to get to the “magic forty two point-mark” and avoid any late-season jitters — but given what we’ve seen this season, the performances to which we’ve been often treated and some of the results we’ve picked up, it’s not entirely surprising that some of us are reacting to our first real downturn in form in somewhat animated fashion.
For me, any speculation about Régis Le Bris’ position is ridiculously premature, even if the head coach finds himself under a tad more scrutiny than he’s done at any time this season. This is by no means a crisis — but perhaps it’s more of a crossroads-type situation for Sunderland after a promising yet undeniably gruelling campaign.
Europe? Forget it. Not happening — and for my money, it never was. The Europa and Conference League dreams were as enjoyable as Peter Drury’s impish “title-chasing Sunderland” line, but we’re simply not at that level and to claim otherwise would be foolhardy, in my opinion.
Had Sunday’s loss occurred six or seven games into the season, we’d have hailed it as a “reality check” but as it is, it was the latest in a run of performances and results that seem to suggest that the Lads are running out of something — steam, creativity or aggression — and the fans have responded in kind. Is it fair? Maybe not. Are some of the criticisms valid? Absolutely.
Perhaps the biggest concern at the moment is the fact that our midfield, once so solid and effective, now looks merely decent, and the defence — for so long the bedrock of our competitiveness even if we weren’t firing in attack — has been stripped of the abrasive edge that gave opposing teams something to think about both at home and away.
As we all know, the attacking threat has been gradually diminishing for some time, but now that other areas are starting to misfire, Sunderland are exhibiting a vulnerability that can’t be ignored.
Whether Le Bris has lapsed too heavily into safety-first mode, effectively trying to steer Sunderland into mid-table using a “rope-a-dope” approach is a topic that’ll continue to be debated but paradoxically, Sunday’s selections of both Jocelin Ta Bi and Nilson Angulo seemed to hint at a more positive approach before the Ivorian winger exited the fray with an injury and we were subsequently hindered by stodgy sideways passing and indecisive play.
Fundamentally, we need to recapture the things that made us such an effective unit earlier in the season and that drew praise from the likes of Bernardo Silva as we held Manchester City to a gutsy and well-deserved draw.
We haven’t become a bad team; instead, we’ve simply lost our way a little bit and perhaps stripping things back, maximising our strongest attributes and not overcomplicating matters would be the smart move — particularly with two tricky- looking away games at Bournemouth and Leeds to come.
However, the absolute worst element of Sunday was the depressing and disgraceful news that Romaine Mundle had fallen victim to the online bigots that occupy the darkest corners of the internet; those who hide behind their faceless handles and felt obliged to spew hatred towards a wholehearted and talented young footballer.
A societal problem? Yes. Something that’s aided and abetted by a media landscape that too often treats young, confident black footballers with disdain? Absolutely, and it was good to see Granit Xhaka in particular take a stand and jump to his teammate’s defence — the actions of a true leader and fine club ambassador.
This is an immensely diverse and cosmopolitan squad — one that’s been built with good values and the right ethos — and we can’t allow bigotry, intolerance and the actions of online troglodytes to tarnish it.
I hope that Mundle feels as though he has a safe space to operate within at Sunderland and that he recognises that the majority of us don’t embody such hideous views. He’s a human being first and a footballer second, and we should always treat him with the kind of respect that we ourselves would like to enjoy from others.
