da doce： Football can change very quickly. Only a few months ago, Sunderland were begging Dick Advocaat to stay on as manager after the sterling work he did in keeping the club in the Premier League. Now they’re bottom of the table again and even the club’s own sponsors make the Black Cats favourites for relegation.
da dobrowin： Even with the poor start to the season it’s too early to be making calls like that. If things can change that quickly after two games, then surely they can change back after the next two games. Next up are Swansea and Aston Villa – two teams who have had decent starts, and two teams who I feel will do relatively well this season, but also two teams who are beatable. Win them and things turn very quickly.
The problem is, on the basis of the first two games, Sunderland’s worries are much greater than simply losing two games. It’s not the fact they’re bottom of the table with no points and seven goals conceded, it’s that they played seemingly without interest or desire. Sunderland legends are pointing fingers and calling the players out, and Match of the Day pundits weren’t kind to the Sunderland defence, pointing out the lack of pressing and the space afforded to Norwich’s players all over the pitch. Nathan Redmond’s goal – the Canaries’ third – was some of the worst defending I’ve seen in the Premier League, not one Sunderland player got close enough to put any sort of pressure on the attackers, let alone make a challenge. You’d have to say that it doesn’t look good.
But it’s not the lack of pressing from the Sunderland midfield and defence that’s the problem. I can see how not putting any pressure on the team attacking your goal would look like disinterest and apathy, but I don’t think that’s Sunderland’s immediate problem. It’s indiscipline and a lack of intelligence – or at least a lack of understanding of their roles – from the players themselves that’s the problem.
Pressing isn’t the be all and end all of defending. In the Premier League it’s seen as necessary and most teams do it, so it’s widely accepted that any team who doesn’t press the opposition is defending poorly. Teams playing any sort of containing system are constantly brought up on highlights shows and pointed out as being lazy or even suicidal. And they may be right, perhaps getting your defence to press the opposition when they’re in possession is possibly the best way to go about organising your defence, at least in the Premier League. But not every manager wants to set his team up to do that, and if they don’t you shouldn’t call the players lazy. Advocaat doesn’t seem to want to set his team up to press, and that’s just the system he wants to play.
Now the fact that Sunderland have conceded seven goals in two games probably says that the Dutch manager should set his team up to press. It’s probably a sign that he should do. Not because his system doesn’t work, but because it doesn’t work for his team. Not right now anyway.
The problems at the weekend didn’t arise when Sunderland stood off the opposition. Norwich were no threat when Sunderland had two lines of men between the ball and Costel Pantilimon in goal. The problems started when someone broke out of that line and left space for Norwich’s players slightly further up the pitch. The problem isn’t the system, the problem is the indiscipline. When the opposition has the ball in the middle of the pitch, the Sunderland men held their position, but when someone charges out of the ranks to try to make a tackle, he leaves space where he should be standing. When the opposition nip into that space, the chink in the armour, then someone else has to come and cover. And then the domino effect begins as players get dragged out of position to try to make tackles.
Advocaat’s system requires too much discipline of his players, especially players like Lee Cattermole – the last person you think of when you hear the word ‘discipline’. Sunderland’s problem isn’t lazy players, it’s having players who can’t cope with the system, and the fact that the manager is putting in place a system that he doesn’t have the players to implement properly.
In an age where every other club around Sunderland are using money from the new TV deal to invest in their squads and push ahead, Sunderland are fiddling with experimental systems and getting nowhere. And it’s only going to cost them in the end.
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