In recent years Sunderland have been known for making abysmal starts to seasons. These horrible starts have played a big part in us constantly battling the drop and luckily just scraping by every year.
This has to be the season that Sunderland begin to look forward with optimism. We finally have a stable manager with Premier League experience who thrives in turning mediocre teams into squads to be feared, as long as he doesn’t get the England job. Allardyce will know exactly what needs to be done in order to push us to the next level and I’m sure although it doesn’t seem like it, all kinds of preparations and negotiations are being made.
Last season appeared to be our best chance to get off to a quick start and push on in quite a few seasons with Leicester away and then newly promoted Norwich at home. It’s fair to say that was not the case taking no points and conceding four goals instantly lowering the confidence of the city and the club. This seasons opener at the Etihad seems like the worst opening you could imagine with them likely to spend millions on a brand new team for Pep Guardiola but Sunderland have the potential to turn it into their advantage. All the pressure will be on Guardiola to get a result in his first home game and show his free-flowing passing style which was made famous in his time at Barcelona. Big Sam’s teams are known for being hard to break down and for frustrating teams into submission which could be the perfect counter.
Middlesbrough will be a totally different story. After being out of the top flight for so long playing at the Stadium of Light will have the Teessiders at an unbelievable level of excitement and they will try and come for us from the first whistle. Sunderland will need to control the game and show a good level of discipline and wait to capitalise on mistakes.Four points from those two games would be an unbelievable start and a great boost of confidence and push the Black Cats ahead of danger early rather than focusing on survival from the outset as usual and hopefully we will finally show why we deserve to be in this league.
