With Jack Clarke out for six weeks it looks as if Sunderland’s season is all but over, but this is why I don’t think it is as bad as some people think.
It feels like since the 4-0 defeat to Middlesborough, we have struggled to pull together any sort of form and it does now feel like we will fail to get close to the achievement last year’s squad got to. A lot of fans have hit boiling point with calls for the board to go and Speakman to be sacked, which I can understand to some degree; recruitment was poor in the summer and the appointment of Beale completely derailed our season. However, are we going to just magically forget that the same man brought in players such as Jack Clarke, Patrick Roberts, Trai Hume and Dan Ballard, all players that many fans would lose sleep over if they left the club?
This season was always going to be tough compared to last season. Teams such as Leicester, Leeds and Southampton coming down with already solid squads plus the parachute money, it’s impossible to properly compete with them. If you then include the absence of Amad Diallo who pulled off so many big moments that without him last year there was no chance we snuck into those play-off spots. Plus, a player of Ross Stewart’s level leaving was always going to be difficult to replace and that has proven to be the case. We have suffered from our success last year in the fact that we all just wanted to stay up, and massively overachieved, so now a year of consolidation seems like a backward step, when it really isn’t and could be a benefit for us next year.
Look at the three teams that went up last year, they are all likely coming straight back down and only Luton are putting up any sort of fight. Nobody can tell me that this young squad would not benefit from another year of Championship football. What is the point in rushing back to the Premier League only to have a nostalgia trip relegation battle and a rapid return to playing 2nd tier football? If we go up, we want to stay up, and another year of experience for this young group alongside some good additions could be exactly what we need. This is especially the case when you look at the fact we will have a new manager, who has had a full pre-season to implement his ideas and hopefully set us up for a proper go at promotion.
I, like most Sunderland fans, want to see us back in the Premier League, however I want to see us go up and stick around, a bit like Brentford and Brighton. Another year is not the end of the world. If next year is another year of nothing then questions should rightfully be asked, but for now, trust the process, keep the faith and you never know - maybe we repeat the heroics of last year and squeeze into those play-offs, however, let’s not pile onto the club if that is not the case.
