WHAT NOW?

Yesterday Sunderland threw it right back to 2020, losing to struggling League One opposition on a terrible pitch and playing football that makes you question your love for the sport. In what has been a very positive season, it felt that the Sunderland of old crept into play at Vale Park. With the dream of Wembley now over and safety almost certain, how do we even approach the remaining games without it feeling like the season is fizzling out?

The first port of call is of course the derby. In our first visit to St James’ Park for ten years, both teams are in absolutely rotten form and it looks set to be a tough watch for the neutral. Brighton on Saturday quite simply needs to be a win, get some momentum going into it and a bit of positivity back into the fanbase. Newcastle have three games in the next 14 days and with fans already turning on Eddie Howe it’s a good time to play them. Only issue with that is that the Geordies will be saying the exact same about us.

After the derby though, what happens? That leaves seven games with potentially no importance on them at all. Of course, should we win our next two you could argue we’ll firmly be in contention for a Conference League spot but let’s be honest - can anybody even see us scoring from open play at the minute, never mind stringing a run together?

One thing I absolutely want to see in the next nine games is a complete change in style. I do not think I can sit through another game of this horrifically slow and pragmatic football. We are safe now, there is no reason for it to continue. We have been hard to watch for a while now but if it’s getting results you can ignore it. Now and especially yesterday it’s just become unwatchable.

This has become an overall issue in football to be honest, with a lot of games being pretty tough watches compared to what it was like maybe five-six years ago. We seem absolutely void of any attacking ideas and I do partially put that down to the manager as well as the individuals playing. There does not seem to be any pattern of play and it genuinely just feels like we go wide and the wingers either cut in and shoot or attempt to put a cross in. It is so predictable.

People complain about our strikers far too often in my opinion while the wingers and so-called creative players get away with it every single week. We have scored four goals in our last five games, three were penalties and the other was Mayenda pouncing on a poor parry from the keeper at Bournemouth.

Maybe the reason the strikers look sick of their life is because they are living off absolute scraps. The number of times a midfielder has took an extra fancy flick instead of playing a through ball, or a winger has cut back and passed back to the full back as they are not able to beat their man, has happened far too often and at Premier League level it has to be better.

I personally do believe Regis Le Bris needs to tread carefully in these remaining games as the football is awful to watch and we are not going to progress playing like this. With KLD showing he can be ruthless, Regis needs to start showing he can get us scoring goals and that he is the man to continue our progression.

This is not me discrediting Le Bris by any means as what he has done for this club has been incredible and I think considering the money we have spent you cannot exactly always blame the manager when a £30m footballer cannot complete a simple through ball. However, there are only so many times I can watch our current style of play without it getting frustrated as it feels we have gone far too much on the side of pragmatism to the point where the players seem to have forgotten what to do going forward.

Ultimately the job was safety and I completely agree, we have done exactly what we have set out to do. Now though its time to look ahead to the future and its time for people to prove they are able to progress with the club. Do not let the season fizzle out, let’s try to finish as high as possible trying to play good football. I am not saying Big Ange high line with games ending 5-4, I just want to see us creating more chances and not going to a low block whenever we feel the slightest bit of pressure. Fingers crossed this was a bit of a wake-up call to the group and we can end what has been a fantastic season on a high.