Let’s all calm down and take a breather. Yes, it has been a torrid week of results, there is no denying this, but the barrage of abuse and calls for his head that LJ has taken since Tuesday is borderline laughable.
Never have I been as embarrassed to be a Sunderland fan as Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, seeing posts flooded with Johnson out. A coach with a 57%-win rate and who has been part of a cataclysmic shift in strategy and approach at the SoL. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so why do we expect Sunderland to be any different? We seem to tarnish the team with the same brush as that of the past few seasons when the reality could not be much more different. Even speaking with my father this morning, a man to whom I defer on matters not only regarding football but general life, this residual effect of recent pain seemed to rear its head again.
Frustration is understandable, God only knows I was lashing out post-game yesterday, but what good does it do? We have an extremely talented, young squad who are being bullied by experience professionals. It seems that losing wipes the memory of any good fans seem to see. Last night, we were the better team in every measurable department other than scoreline (which I know is all that matters to the table), but you really start to worry when performances are bad. Why are we insistent that every loss is a poor performance? Yes, we have to defend better than we are, especially considering all of the goals are carbon copies, but we haven’t played badly aside from Rotherham. Fans seem determined to find he bad in every situation, and that is the most frustrating thing to me. We follow in tremendous numbers, and we are incredibly loud, but GOD can we be toxic. Ten days ago, it was all hail King Johnson, now its Johnson out.
This leads me nicely into the next stage of this post. We have identified the issue, now let’s work on a solution. The issue is personnel. I have been extremely laudatory of the recruitment, and I continue to be so, but the weaknesses to our approach were shown by the ‘floodgate’ case of Pompey away (Pun very much intended). That game showed an inherent weakness (or two) in our squad. We struggle when the ball isn’t on the ground. I maintain that we are by far and away the best footballing side in the league, but unfortunately, League one is more reminiscent of rugby league than the football league. Of our previous nine goals conceded, eight have come within 10 yards of the goal, and the anomalous goal resulted from a flick on from a long ball – not too dissimilar you would have to agree. From this, the issue is clear – we are too weak at the back. I said earlier this season this could prove to be an issue.
Winchester is not a fullback, despite having had a great season, and Cirkin is very much a purebred player. Flanagan has never been a dominant aerial challenger, and Doyle is the nearest thing to a quarterback that I have seen in stripes. This all adds up to a poor aerial defence from a purely physical perspective. Unfortunately, the strong point of our team is also seeming to be a major Achilles’ heel. It is apparent from watching many of our better young players: Neil, Cirkin, Doyle, Dajaku, etc. that they have never played such football before. Anyone who is used to watching elite youth football knows that they all play ‘proper’ football. Short, fluid, intricate passes – something more akin to total football. League one could not be more juxtaposed to this. For reference, we had nearly 200% the amount of passes that Sheffield had last night.
This paints a grim picture. If the issue is with personnel, as I would very much suggest it is, then we seem to be up the proverbial creek. With January still two very long months away, the likelihood of signing a new cornerstone defender is a distant wish. Thus, we must rely on coaching to fix the issue. Step up Mr. Johnson and his team. Against Rotherham, Sunderland’s fullbacks were overwhelmed by rampaging counterparts with little help from our wingers. Fast forward to Tuesday and the changes come. O’Brien and Gooch are brought in, seemingly to offer more willingness to defend these common sources of balls into the box. It didn’t work, instead they launched it in from the middle, but the theory is there. No coach in football history could coach our young side to defend against Northern league tactics in a day. If we take Sunday as a rest day, then Tuesday as travelling to Sheffield, Johnson will have had a single day to coach the lads to defend such situations. Even if he were a demi-God, I doubt he could do it.
In our ire, I feel all perspective has gone. We are a better side than last year, and a much-improved outfit from owner to academy. Processes, especially those done properly, take time – and it seems our fans are expectant of an overnight transformation. IF, given a few weeks, Johnson doesn’t fix these issues before our next league game, then perhaps there is more to these allegations. But, for me, to judge a manager on obvious personnel weaknesses when he’s had no time to reactively coach just seems moronic.
Finally, I shall put my money where my mouth is and give my two cents to the solution. The issue with our defence is isolation. They isolate Winchester as a player out of position, and they have two physical strikers against two technical centre halves. My inner American football fan sees this as a mismatch nightmare and sends alarm bells ringing. As these are personnel weaknesses, a new approach could mitigate these. For me, I would do something like this.
Hoffmann
Doyle, Wright, Alves
O’Nien, Cirkin
Winchester
Dajaku, Neil, Embleton
Stewart
The three centre halves should give us a numbers advantage against the two forwards we now seem to be combatting, meaning that Doyle can focus more on playing than challenging. Alves’ height ought to help with balls into the box, and Wright has always looked good in a back three (though lacking in a two). Cirkin being more advanced should allow for his attacking quality to show and allow for Embleton to move inside, overloading the centre behind Stewart. But perhaps the most important aspect of this revolves (pun intended) around a defensive systemic change. Whilst defending we have five, when going forward I would propose a shift to a dynamic three. Moving O’Nien back into defence (akin to last season), drawing Doyle forward into a Quarterback role allowing him to spray it around as we know he can, and most importantly negating the man-marking techniques other teams are using. The biggest forward grabs Doyle and holds onto him for ninety minutes, in order to do the same he would now have to drop deeper whilst still having three between him and the goal. This should allow for Doyle to be mismatched less on long balls and remove the need for him to challenge for them at all.
There is a reason that I am not a football coach, and as such this is purely theoretical. I expect a big fight back from the squad against Ipswich in the league, and for that we will wait and see. I trust LJ, he has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt given the job he’s done since he arrived. We are building something great at the SoL, but as the proverb goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day, so why do we expect so from our team?
