History has a habit of repeating itself – but rarely with the debilitating frequency experienced at Sunderland. The cycle goes like this: the team struggles to the point where relegation seems inevitable, the manager is sacked, a replacement parachuted in and the Championship somehow averted. Shortly afterwards, the players regress into bad habits and what has become an alarmingly recurring theme continues.
Martin O’Neill, Paolo Di Canio and Gus Poyet have all fallen victim to the syndrome and now even Dick Advocaat is experiencing it. The difference today is that, unless things change radically, the 67-year-old former Holland coach is unlikely to hang around waiting to be dismissed a few months down the line.
“I cannot go on this way,” he said in the aftermath of Sunderland’s second abject surrender of the new season. “We have to find a solution one way or the other.”
A solution good enough to satisfy Advocaat that he made the right call in reversing an earlier decision to retire this summer will surely need to be twofold. First, Ellis Short, Sunderland’s owner, appears in acute danger of losing yet another coach unless he heeds Advocaat’s warning that the team requires significant strengthening before the transfer window closes.
Second, the manager will require a response from his existing squad. He and the players convened for a “crisis meeting” on Sunday in the wake of two atrocious performances. “If we keep playing this way then we have no chance at all,” said Advocaat, whose side opened the campaign with a 4-2 defeat at Leicester.
“I don’t like what I see. It’s like another team from the final eight games of last season. With all respect, even this team should be strong enough to get a good result against Norwich. They need a different mentality.”
So what is the precise problem? Advocaat has a pretty good idea, which, on Saturday evening, he seemed anxious to mull over with his board. “I have to be a little bit diplomatic,” he said. “I have a feeling, an idea but I have to discuss it with other people.”
It does not take too great a leap of imagination to suspect he might advise Short, Margaret Byrne, the chief executive, and Lee Congerton, the sporting director, to try to ship out certain players. The dressing room gained perhaps unhealthy power when, two years ago, a cabal of senior professionals persuaded Byrne that Di Canio needed sacking.
Unfortunately, offloading players will not be easy as they command big money at Sunderland – incredibly, the club has the eighth highest wage bill in the Premier League. This partly explains why their net spend this summer – about £6m – is the division’s lowest. Short frets about complying with financial fair play but, without splashing the cash, it is hard to imagine relegation being dodged just as a gargantuan new top-tier television deal kicks in.
For the first time, the fans turned on Short on Saturday. No matter that the American financier was elsewhere, those in the 41,379 crowd who had not walked out chorused: “Are you watching, Ellis Short?”
Their remarkable loyalty has been stretched to the limit. Small wonder they could not take the sight of the excellent Nathan Redmond and Robbie Brady strutting their stuff as a collectively impressive Norwich City cantered to victory, courtesy of goals from Russell Martin, Steven Whittaker and Redmond. A consolation scored by Duncan Watmore, making his debut from the bench, served as a mere academic footnote.
Some wretched defending played a big part, with Patrick van Aanholt, shocking at left-back, the principal culprit. Alongside him, Younès Kaboul was almost as bad, while in midfield Lee Cattermole had another stinker.
In contrast, Alex Neil’s side were a good half a yard sharper and, significantly, brimmed over with the sort of invention and intelligence a mentally lazy Sunderland have long lacked. “We’re not functioning as a team,” conceded the worldly-wise Advocaat. “We do things I don’t expect at this level. It is very strange for me.”
With better luck, Neil’s highly effective unit could conceivably have scored three more goals. “Yes, we felt that,” said Redmond when the England Under-21 creator was asked if he believed his side might have run riot. “It was there for us.”
Indictments rarely come more damning. The overwhelming suspicion is that years of complacency and arrogance have corroded Sunderland’s mindset. Radical, and rapid, change appears imperative.
Man of the match Nathan Redmond (Norwich City)
