Premier League crisis team of the week: Sunderland
By Gary Pearson
Winless Sunderland have made the worst start of any team since the Premier League’s 1992 inception and, like so many instances before, will need to pull off a minor miracle to secure their place in England’s top flight.
After their EFL Cup loss at St. Mary’s to Southampton on Oct. 26, Sunderland were due to fly back immediately, but thick fog prevented them from leaving, forcing them to stay an extra night on the south coast.
The unrelenting thicket of fog blanketing Sunderland could be a definitive metaphor for their season.
Sunderland have been the worst team in the Premier League by a long shot, which was once again overtly clear in their 4-1 home loss to Arsenal. There’s no shame in losing to Arsenal by a wide margin, especially considering the Black Cats were on level terms with 19 minutes left to play.
But this result is the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The stats don’t lie
Drained of confidence, Sunderland don’t have enough Premier League pedigree and currently lack the depth to win at this level. The Black Cats managed two goals in five October games and lay claim to the dubious title of league’s most anaemic offense.
Statistics definitely don’t tell the entire story, but in Sunderland’s case, they are particularly disconcerting.
They haven’t yet kept a clean sheet. Crystal Palace are the only other Premier League team to share that honor. Even Hull have one shutout to their name.
Logically, you’d expect struggling teams to make it difficult for opposing teams to play, often reflected by the number of tackles made. Unfortunately for Sunderland, that’s not the case. They’ve made the third fewest tackles (157), 15.7 per game. Only Burnley (154) and Bournemouth (153) have committed fewer.
In comparison, Hull, another team currently in the drop zone, have made the fourth most tackles (194) in the league.
The Black Cats finished the 2015-16 season in seventh place with 767 tackles, or 20.2 tackles per game. That’s about five more tackles per game than their current pace, a stat that Sunderland must improve to give themselves a better chance of winning each game.
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Not only are they defending for the majority of most matches, but they’re also unable to get close enough to make meaningful challenges.
Alexis Sanchez on Saturday highlighted Sunderland’s inability to get stuck in by beating Lamine Kone, a towering 6-foot-1 center-back, to an aerial ball. It resulted in Arsenal’s first goal. Kone, who has an almost six inch height advantage, didn’t even get airborne. Losing an aerial battle to a player of Sanchez’s size is inexcusable.
Sunderland cannot afford to be inferior in these instances.
Sanchez showed the kind of spirit and desire Sunderland, as a collective unit, will have to continually display to dig out of this crater-size hole they’ve dug for themselves.
Sunderland, after 10 matches in the 2015-16 campaign, were in 18th place and had 11 goals for, 19 against. They had one win and three draws for six total points. That’s a spread of four points from this time last year. It doesn’t seem like a large margin, but that could equate to 10 percent of total points for relegation battling teams.
Things went from bad to worse against Arsenal when club captain John O’Shea suffered a hamstring injury. The second-worst defense in the league can ill-afford to lose their veteran center-back.
Sunderland’s silver lining
There is a silver lining in Sunderland and he goes by the name of Jermain Defoe. The 34-year-old forward has scored five of the team’s seven goals and is a perennial goal threat. His burden, however, is too great for one man to bear.
Patrick van Aanholt, the team’s starting left back, is the only other Sunderland player who has scored this season. Otherwise, it’s an offensive barren wasteland.
There is a glimmer of hope with the return of Adnan Januzaj from injury. It’s only a glimmer of hope, though. The 21-year-old midfielder cannot be expected to pick up the goalscoring slack.
David Moyes on the hot seat
Manager David Moyes is taking most of the criticism for the team’s forlorn form. Should Moyes get the boot? Probably.
Is he culpable for Sunderland’s feeble form? Probably not.
He doesn’t have the personnel to succeed but that won’t stop Ellis Short from ousting the bedraggled Scot.
We all know what happens when a team appoints a new manager. There is usually an instantaneous surge in form, which quite often translates into something tangible and decisively important: Premier League points.
Already at a crossroads, Sunderland travel to Bournemouth next week before clashing with Hull, another member of the likely relegation brigade, on the other side of the international break. Both fixtures are six point affairs the Black Cats cannot afford to lose.
Next: October is the cruelest month
Sunderland lost one game in 11 at the backend of last season to escape the drop, a mark they may to have to match, or even improve upon, to avoid plying their trade in the Championship in 2017-18.
Their abysmal start also means that Sunderland will have to accumulate about 38 points in 28 remaining games to clamor to safety. Improbable, but not inconceivable, especially when talking about the masters of the Great Escape.