Football has far too many so-called pundits these days, and although we’re all entitled to an opinion, the ones that say Sunderland will struggle this season feel just a bit lazy.
Last summer, we were tipped for an immediate return to the Championship because, as a newly promoted team, this is what generally is supposed to happen according to those at the top of the game.
Sunderland and Leeds bucked a trend of those coming up going straight down by having strong seasons, and we’ve been rewarded with
European football for our exploits. A team full of talent and experience might have been given more credit by some of these so-called experts, but alas, this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Numerous people in the game suggest we’ll struggle in the league this season based on the fact that we’re in Europe. If there were a league table for lazy predictions, then this would be lifting the title. Just once in the last 25 years has a team playing in Europe been relegated, yet we’re apparently going to be favourites to struggle this season because of it.
It’s boring, and it’s barely worth taking notice given just how wrong people have been about us in the last two seasons, but in the saturated world of football media, we’re still an easy option to write off.
The combination of Europe and a quiet transfer window is giving these so-called experts an easy option to point at us and go, ‘Yeah, they’ll struggle’. I’ll admit it’s a little bit unnerving to see almost nothing on the incomings front, but let’s be honest, we know by now that Sunderland do business quietly.
Also on this, we have a very good squad, and we’ve kept all of our key players so far (touch wood this continues). If we had gone out again this summer and even got close to repeating the signing antics of last summer, then alarm bells would be ringing for me. As it is, we’ve added experience to our ranks and movement elsewhere in the squad will come.
Our bidding battles for Dayann Methalie and Geny Catamo will conclude soon, and they are an indication of the money we’re willing to spend and the quality of player we’re in for, and we will sign at least a few more players before the end of the window; I do not doubt it, and I also have lots of faith in the hierarchy.
Sunderland may have a minimum of almost 50 games next season, and there’s no doubt that we have gaps in the squad, but these are gaps I fully believe will be filled by the time the window closes.
Just this week, the Sky Sports supercomputer spat out its predicted league table for the upcoming season and has us 15th in the table, which is actually better than most other predictions we’ve seen, but still feels harsh given we’ve kept our squad through the summer.
These pre-season predictions are just that. Predictions. Last year we were tipped to struggle because we signed 14 new players; this year we’re being told we’ll struggle because we haven’t signed lots of players.
The way I see it is we’ll be fine. A few more bodies in the door and the lads having a couple of weeks together before the season kicks off, and I’m sure we’ll have a great chance of hitting the ground running and aiming for another strong season.
