Sunderland, like Atlas, have been condemned – largely by themselves – to hold up the Heavens. Certainly, any place above twentieth on the table seems a heavenly place to those at the very bottom. Raise a scented silken handkerchief to your nose and peer down; there they are, grubby, twitching and sweating under the strain of 19 other early seasonal narratives, all of them far less drearily inevitable than their own. No one is surprised that The Black Cats are propping up the division. When Chelsea are floundering fantastically as they are, and Anthony Martial is soaring as he is, there simply is no need to occupy even the most vacant of minds with thoughts of Sunderland and their ineluctable wallowing, down there, in the pit of despair.
Sunderland have conceded the most goals in the division. They are yet to win a match. Their manager, Dick Advocaat, has already expressed his acute worry. Sorry, it wasn’t worry; it was fear. “Not only the result scares me a little bit, but also the way we played,” said Advocaat, following Sunderland’s 4-2 defeat at Leicester City. That was in early August, and things haven’t really improved since then. If anything, they’ve worsened.
Of course, we’ve seen this before, for the last few seasons. Sunderland avoided relegation by three points in 2014/15. The season before that, it was five points. The season before that, three points. In the last three seasons, Sunderland haven’t managed to break the 40 point barrier, the so-called threshold of safety. They haven’t just flirted with the drop; they’ve made egregious advances, hips gyrating, eyelashes fluttering, only to escape out the bedroom window just in time, while relegation was in the bathroom freshening up.
It’s a horrid limbo to be trapped in, for the supporters in particular. There is no doubt that many of them, stuck as they are in this toxic Groundhog Day-of-a-season, would welcome relegation, and the holistic restructuring, bloodletting and general spring-clean that would come with it. A spell in the second division, while a little less prestigious, would even hold the now-rare promise of a winning season. Courting doom like this, so closely and for so long, eventually ensconces you in doom anyway, simply by proximity. If you keep out of sight the stories of Leeds, or Wolves, clubs that fell out of the top division and continued to fall, then relegation doesn’t seem so bad, in fact, it’s almost a relief.
At their rivals, Newcastle, things are similarly grim. But there’s a sort of billowing fury rattling through the stands at St James’ Park, an indignation that, justified or not, fires up the soul, gets the blood, if not boiling, then at least pumping. At The Stadium of Light, only a muted darkness exists, a chilling void of enthusiasm, where outrageous acts of defensive ineptitude are met with hollow acceptance and resignation, a glazed-over numbness, like a man who’s just kicked out a poised playing card from the bottom tier of a 20-level house. There’s no saving things now, just let the gloom wash over you.
So, with that in mind, Sunderland are to welcome to their ground the joint-highest scoring team in the league, a West Ham side that is yet to lose or draw on the road. This isn’t to imply that West Ham have no deficiencies of their own, but theirs have popped up exclusively at Upton Park, for some reason or another. Errors, costly in the extreme, have plagued them there, but on the road it’s another matter: seven goals scored, one conceded, and maximum points garnered, all from better teams than Sunderland. It all seems ominous for the hosts, who, after their battering at the hands of Manchester United, will line up a little bruised, hoping to avoid yet another round of the same punishment.
To forage, as we should, for a ray of light in all this darkness, Patrick van Aanholt and Jeremain Lens have at least appeared lively for Sunderland, full of youthful spring and eagerness. Their industry has been rather wasted by Jermaine Defoe and Fabio Borini – the latter, let’s not forget, tried as hard as he could to avoid coming to the Wearside club – who have frustrated the masses with their streaky finishing. There is also something dangerously seductive about Yann M’Vila, certainly not a player with whom you’d want to be fighting a dirty relegation battle, but a swaggering midfielder nonetheless, on his day. But Sunderland’s assets, or potential assets, are firmly outweighed by their liabilities. There are the aforementioned misfiring strikers, as well as their centre backs, namely Younes Kaboul who, judging by the way he was held at bay with ease by United’s Martial last weekend, can’t even provide the hard muscle his impressive stature insinuates. And then, the grating continued presence of Lee Cattermole, a player approaching cult infamy, and yet one who started the match last week against United.
And so, the weekend approaches, potentially another resonant hammering. As bad runs go on, every match seems less and less likely to be the one that turns things around. It probably won’t be against West Ham that Sunderland spring from their three-year-old slump into life. It may not happen at all this season. But if the worst does eventuate, and one of the dreaded trio of downward-looking spots belongs to The Black Cats at season’s end, it may well be for the best. Cats always land on their feet, and this one might just need to be pushed.
What are your thoughts? Let us know by dropping a comment below via our Facebook comment box. Make sure you follow us on Twitter @Outside90 and like us on Facebook.
