Here we are again, shaking our heads in disbelief after another soul-destroying Saturday as a Sunderland supporter. Another crucial goal scored in the dying seconds of a game that we would have been delighted to have ended at 0-0. Although it’s nothing to throw a party over, a point away at the London Stadium would certainly have been more than many Sunderland fans would have expected at 3:00 this afternoon.
Anyway, the less said about our catastrophic start to the season the better. As the gaffer once again has his players playing the positional hokey-cokey and makes suspect substitutions – certainly not the first time this has happened this season – it calls into question Moyes’ tactics and overall vision for our game.
As Glenn Hoddle this apparently been bemoaning the demise of the throw-in, it got me to thinking how many similar complaints I hear each week from the people sat around me at the Stadium of Light. One of my friends gets a fair bit of stick for shrieking “get goal side” at every opportunity, complete with manic arm waving and a wild look in his eye. But this is a basic that many defenders seem to forget about nowadays. Patrick van Aanholt and Jason Denayer, to name but two, seem oblivious to the attackers that are invading our final third. They seem to prefer to dawdle about in no man’s land looking at something shiny until the penny drops and the attacking man is knee deep in our 18 yard box. They’re constantly back tracking and chasing the man and – as my mate has been squawking for however many years – failing to get goal side.
While I’m on the subject, marking also seems to be an optional extra for a lot of our players. Man marking is something I learnt about when I was seven years old and chasing kids three times my size around my school football field – I can still remember my dad telling me “whatever you do, don’t let him get the ball off you!” Obviously it’s not as simplistic as that in a Premier League football match but come on. Often the play is coming from one side of the pitch while our men stand picking their nose, oblivious to attackers running amok down the wing and only springing into action to deliver a hair-raising tackle at the last minute (if we’re lucky). Our lack of clean sheets shows how successful this approach is. Watch your wing! I’ve lost count how many times I’ve said that whilst sat in row 11 cursing our defensive players. Watch. Your. Wing. Don’t worry though – we’ve been assured by David Moyes that time has been spent on improving defending this week. That seems to be working out well.
Something else that seems to be dying out is the knowledge, understanding and general obeying of the offside rule. Being able to explain and follow the offside rule is like a rite of passage for any football fan and I’m sorry but it’s really not that hard. I mean I’m a girl and I’d learnt it before I’d left primary school – if you watch enough football then surely it just goes in by default? There are plenty of strikers that could do with a refresher course it would seem. Loitering around the 18 yard box with two yards of grass between you and the line of opposing defenders is just lazy. Being caught offside once or twice is fair enough, but consistently having the whistle blown because you’re falling victim to the offside trap is plain annoying. Sometimes I wonder if they even bother to look, because the flag’s up more than its down and any slim chance we have of scoring is shut straight down.
I can’t really talk about the amount of players caught in the offside position without talking about the back post. Surely this is so basic – when you’ve set up a corner, you get a man on the back post. How many goals are nicked from free headers or toe taps from the back post when there’s a man on the prowl? By other teams obviously – not ours. So many chances missed and we can’t afford to be missing opportunities.
Set pieces. Another basic – or at least it should be – that Sunderland have failed to get right for years. How many goals do we score from corners? Well, we’ve only scored six goals this season, so that should give you your answer. Half the time there’s more time spent faffing about with lace-tying, ball shining and that godforsaken vanishing spray than there actually is thought and execution into the free kick or corner itself. We don’t seem to have a natural player who delivers quality set pieces. To me that’s down to the training ground and practising it until they’re sick of it – again, wasted opportunities.
I’ve got to agree about the throw ins though. For a start, there’s usually a couple of foul throws each game that referees appear to ignore for a quiet life – from most teams. Lazy throws hurled straight at the ground, without both hands even behind the head of the player chucking it. Of course when it’s a Sunderland throw-in, it’s pretty much a gift to the opposition anyway. No one in red and white actually seems to want to receive the throw-in, and if they do the momentum’s gone by the time they finally swagger into a space. We may as well not bother with 90% of our throw-ins, because we struggle to maintain possession and seem to have given up even pretending to look interested.
Some “tactics” however, are seen far more frequently than we’d like. Parking the bus – well that seems to be a particular favourite of David Moyes doesn’t it? Stack ten men behind the ball and let Defoe go maverick – long ball football’s a proven success at Sunderland. Schoolboy defending – well definitely. That’s sadly our strongest discipline at the minute and if it weren’t for Jordan Pickford the goal difference would be even more disastrous. How John O’Shea doesn’t get pulled up more for swinging around the neck of the opposition I’ll never know! And I’ll not even go there about goal scoring, or the lack thereof. Everyone knows if you can’t score goals then you can’t win games. Well, David Moyes, we’re not scoring goals – what are you going to do about it?
If our future was looking bleak last week, it’s looking desolate seven days later. With Arsenal next week we’d better hope for a miracle and that our first win can come from the team currently sipping cocktails at the top of the table. They’ve got the potential to score goals for fun and we’ve got a keen interest in leaking more than a dodgy tap, so it could quite possibly be the recipe for disaster.
Let’s hope not.
