Lee Cattermole is a player who divides opinion amongst Sunderland fans, one side can argue that he is an iconic tough tackling anchorman and the other presents him as an ill-disciplined liability. With the score at 3-0 after 24 minutes at the King Power Stadium last Saturday, Cattermole made way for Steven Fletcher as Sunderland desperately scrambled to salvage something from the game. Since then, Cattermole has been derided across both national and local papers as well as on fan message boards, he has become the face of a humiliating team defeat and we are left to wonder whether or not Lee Cattermole is the influential and vital player many think him to be.
Let’s begin with Leicester. Cattermole had a nightmare. His foul on Mahrez for their third goal from the resulting penalty was symbolic of his time on the pitch. He lacked his usual tenacity, failed to pick up runs and was careless in possession. Advocaat was right to haul him off for Fletcher on tactical grounds (we needed goals) and on the grounds of preservation, the last thing we needed was for Lee Cattermole to lose the plot and get sent off trying to overcompensate for his error. Captain for the day, Cattermole should have known better than to dive in on Mahrez, although Mahrez did indeed execute a fantastic pinpoint turn. However, simply laying the blame of Saturday’s defeat at Cattermole’s feet and to write him off as a liability is both short sighted and incorrect. The team performance on Saturday was atrocious with only a few players playing to anywhere near an acceptable level. The defence were all over the shop, the midfield were anonymous and the strike force had minimal service. Many levelled the criticism that the side ‘did not care’ or ‘weren’t up for it’ and yet this cannot be said of Lee Cattermole. In the aftermath of giving away the penalty Cattermole looked distraught, putting his head in his hands, a sure sign that he cared. If one of Cattermole’s colleagues say, Jack Rodwell, had made such a challenge would there be any such show of remorse or genuine regret at what had occurred? I think not. Lee Cattermole is his own biggest critic, he knows fine well that he made an error and he knows his performance was not up to scratch and you can bet that he will be determined to bounce back if selected against Norwich.
Last season, Lee Cattermole was one of the best players in the squad. He added a physicality to the heart of midfield, breaking up attacks before spraying the ball intelligently around the park like a Stockton-born Andrea Pirlo! In an interview with Chris Young from Sunderland Echo previewing the season, Cattermole expressed his heartfelt affinity for the club, referring to Sunderland as ‘my club’ and declaring of Sunderland ‘if you spend enough time somewhere, you fall in love with it’. This loyalty which Cattermole demonstrates for Sunderland is rarely found in modern football, surely we should be grateful for having a player who does not simply pick up his pay cheque and shrug off a poor performance. Coupled with this loyalty, the Chris Young interview also shows Cattermole’s ambition, the midfielder declared “we need to look to push on and get back to the kind of heights that the club enjoyed in the Peter Reid era. They finished seventh or eighth back then, and if you can finish in or around there, then that’s progress”. Cattermole wants Sunderland to push on from perennial relegation battles, to make the step up to become Premier League stalwarts. For a player who not too long ago lost his squad number under Paolo di Canio, Cattermole is a reformed character. In the last season he demonstrated a maturity which was lacking in previous years, he curbed his zealousness when necessary and managed to finish games after receiving yellow cards which compared to his first few seasons is a feat in itself!
Leicester was a bad day at the office for everyone involved in the football club, no more so than Lee Cattermole. However, in Cattermole we have a committed, loyal and ambitious midfielder capable of taking a game by the scruff of its neck, something which arguably no one else in the squad can, or is willing to, do. We must persevere with Lee Cattermole, we can’t simply cast him off when the national press clamour around a below-par performance, Cattermole is the man everybody loves to hate and we must support him. Bone-crunching tackles, long raking cross field balls, committed organisation and communication and a dogged tenacity embody Lee Cattermole’s game and we are far better with players of his attitude on the pitch fighting for every inch than some questionable alternative, simply using Sunderland as a stepping stone. Leicester was a bad game for Cattermole, but let us not forget it was 1 game out of 38 and his worth should be assessed at the end of the season when, if you were a betting man, surely you would predict that he will be amongst the players of the season contenders come May.
