I know, I know. Of course relegation would be horrendous.
We all spend the majority of the season calculating the amount of points we need to stay above the 18th team, and how many goals we can haemorrhage without sinking into the dreaded drop zone.
For most Premier League fans, these calculations might start to enter their train of thoughts around March if they lose a few games off the bounce and their position starts to look a little shaky. For Sunderland fans, these calculations generally take place the day the fixtures become announced and a ball has even been kicked.
That’s certainly been the case this season. Once again, we’ve set our stall out at rock bottom and it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere. Eight games and a cringeworthy two points and no real sign of any upcoming picture delivering our first win. How is it come to this – viewing Bournemouth as a tricky tie and hoping for a point at home against Hull?
Despite starting the season with a new manager and some new faces, it’s groundhog day once again at the base of the premiership. The more things change, the more they stay they seem – well at the Stadium of Light they seem to anyway! But would relegation really be so devastating if this year was (finally) our year.
How many of us were convinced in April that we were going to be playing at Burton Albion and Elland Road this season? Or the year before that, when Dick Advocaat achieved the unachievable? Or even the year before that when Gus Poyet performed his great escape? There’s a pattern emerging here – in the words of my dad, it’s the hope we can’t stand.
I can’t have been the only one resigned to our fate last year before we once again cheated the drop. I’d come to terms to the fact that we’d be saying goodbye to the pampered Chelsea fans and the whingeing Arsenal fans, with their padded seats and sky-high lager prices. I was okay with the fact that we’d have the cliched cold, wet Tuesday night in Rotherham and that a glamour tie with Brentford might be the highlight of another miserable January. And then there it was – that glimmer of hope that became a beacon, where the Mags dropped a tier and left us in the dizzy heights of 17th. By some miracle, we were safe and we facing another season of top flight football.
This season though, it’s looking as though it’s time for our luck (if you can call it that) to finally run out. Just as the writing appeared to be on the wall for Villa early doors last season, it seems to be etched on there for us this time around. I just can’t see us beating the drop this year – and would it really be so bad? Dropping a division could mean the chance to clear our some of the deadwood that’s currently clogging up the dressing/medical room and bleeding our wage bill dry. Let’s face it, plenty of the players who feature in not just our squad but often our starting XI aren’t exactly knocking on the door of the Champion’s League.
Players such as Rodwell, Jones and Love to name but a few – how many other Premier League sides would they get into? Even some of our supposedly better players, who just aren’t cutting it at this level for whatever reason. It could be just what we need to clear out the time wasters and wage sponges who aren’t delivering what they should be.
Yes, the standard of football might not be what it is now but there’s a positive spin to put on that as well. The Championship is a much more honest, down-to-earth league where the majority of players don’t roll around like they’ve been shot when they lose a fifty-fifty or spend more time applying their hair gel than they do lining up a set piece. There’s less meddling from referees and more chance to see football that Kevin Ball would approve of. How many times do we come away from the SOL shaking our heads at another game spoilt by the referees and their inconsistent decisions. There’s much less of that in the lower divisions, the game is far less diluted and the players aren’t treated like china dolls.
We have a massive fanbase, and although we might not draw the 50’000 plus that our black and white adversaries up the road can boast, we certainly wouldn’t be playing to an empty ground every week. With a strong and loyal fanbase, this football club could perhaps start to have its fractures healed and go back to the club that we all love. Is it really worth the time, money and heartache to remain in the top flight, only to watch the team we love get another 3-0 pummelling? Or be happy with a 0-0 draw at home because we’ve kept a clean sheet?
I’m not saying that I want Sunderland to get relegated – far from it. I would be devastated if it really was our time to leave the top flight. But really, would it be so bad? Could it be the kick up the backside that Ellis Short and his mates need?
Something tells me that this won’t be a rhetorical question by the Spring. At least you get a good pie in Wigan . . .
