PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

Wednesday nights defeat to Liverpool was the Black Cats’ first defeat on Wearside this season as well as our first set of back-to-back defeats. The reaction has been a bit surprising with a lot of negativity also met with some complacency. In this piece I will be rattling through a few points I picked up from yesterday’s loss.

EARLY LEAVERS

A topic that pops up every so often is the people that leave early. Ultimately everybody has a right to do what they want but at the same time when you are chasing a game with seven minutes stoppage time, it is not exactly giving the players that lift that they need when they can see a flood of people heading for the exits. The strange thing is this was not an issue in games like Arsenal for example where Brobbey’s late equaliser was roared on by a basically full stadium.

HUME AT RW

Now onto the on pitch matters, yet again Le Bris opted to play Trai Hume as a winger, choosing to drop Chemsdine Talbi for Nilson Angulo to gain his first start. Hume was not terrible by any means but ultimately struggled to impact the game from an unnatural position. Many fans have had a lot to say on Hume in the last couple of games with some pretty harsh conclusions drawn and almost history being rewritten on the Northern Ireland international. Hume had a superb start to the season, interestingly in his natural position at right back.

I get what Le Bris has tried to do but ultimately it is not working and it is really hindering Hume’s game. If Mukiele is who he wants at right back, it makes more sense to just have Hume on the bench rather than shoe horn him into the side.

ANGULO FULL DEBUT

As already mentioned, our Ecuadorian January acquisition made his first start last night. After a relatively quiet first half he came to life in the early stages of the second 45. He showed the sort of intent we have painfully lacked for large portions of the season and I cannot wait to see how he performs once he is properly bedded into his new surroundings.

He is clearly going to be a bit of a flare player and will likely be a bit frustrating, but he is going to be the type of player to get you off your feet when he is on his game.

GEERTRUIDA

After almost joining Wednesday’s opponents on deadline day last month Lutsharel Geertruida was yet again a substitute in a game where our midfield was so clearly lacking somebody to sit in the Xhaka role of the side. Sadiki, Le Fee and Diarra are all good players but all together they just did not work yesterday as the Liverpool midfield absolutely bossed ours at times, with the quality of Florian Wirtz a real standout.

Geertruida has shown he can do the sitting role well and it is really confusing as to why he has not been starting in recent games, are the club not happy with how his possible move was handled? Is it seen as a purely tactical decision? Who knows but come Bournemouth I do feel we need to be seeing Geertruida from the off.

CUP RUN

A worry is that this season could just fizzle out into a 14th/15th position season, which I must add is an absolutely superb outcome to our first season back in the league. I personally still believe we can finish top half but with no Xhaka for another few weeks it will be tough.

With Oxford in the cup on Sunday, I would absolutely love us to have a good run in it. Safety might not be official but truthfully if we get relegated when we have 36 points in February, you really have to question what on earth has gone wrong. So why not give it a good go, try at the very least get a day out at Wembley and pairing that with staying in the league, it would be the absolute dream season for me.

The mindset some of our fans have for cup competitions is a bit sad. Only about six teams have an excuse for the ‘focus on the league’ narrative some people come out with, that’s the bottom four and the top two, the rest of the league should be treating it as serious as you would a European campaign. Ultimately what would you remember more, a 10th place finish, or getting a trip to Wembley?

CONCLUSION

Yes, our last result was disappointing, but I think as a fanbase it gave us a kick up the backside that was needed, but also it addressed that maybe a couple of things need to be tweaked or trialled as an alternative to how we are approaching games currently.