S A’s Essay: Sam sends his apologies

Jake's take on Big Sam
Jake’s take on Big Sam

John McCormick writes….

It’s only a couple of years ago that I was at the SOL to watch us gain a win against Man City. Phil Bardsley scored the only goal in what turned out to be one of many games that season where we kept a clean sheet. Would that we had defenders like Bardsley now, and that we could keep a clean sheet for even 45 minutes. We’ve lost that toughness in defence, we’ve lost our midfield and, Borini aside, we’ve also lost the scoring touch we had a few games ago. Maybe that’s because Sam won’t even give our best and highest scoring forward a start.

ManCityA(FT) (1)
What does Sam himself have to say about this? Find out for yourself as I leak the top-secret, “eyes-only” letter he sends to Colin, and perhaps to a couple of others, after the game:

Dear Colin,

I have to apologise to you after you made the long journey north and to all of the other Sunderland fans who travelled today.

We all knew it was going to be difficult against Manchester City, but I did expect us to show a little bit more fight and determination.

Losing three goals in the space of nine minutes is something you cannot do; you can’t afford to make the kind of mistakes we made.

Our play out of possession has to improve and that is where our problems lie at the moment.
We can look neat and tidy in possession, create a few chances, but when we lose the ball we are not defending correctly as a team at this moment in time. Too many teams are scoring against us.

It isn’t a slow start, because the lads were doing okay. With the lapses in concentration and the way City scored it looks like a slow start, but it’s individuals at that moment in time not doing their job correctly.

Please, please, don't be injured
Please, please, don’t be injured

Younes Kaboul is out and we know the key strength of the side is down the middle. John O’Shea was limping at the end and that makes life more difficult.

If we lose John, Wes [Brown] has only just come back from a bit of an injury and of course he hasn’t played that much.

The only way to go forward is to get clean sheets.

Thanks for your support

Sam Allardyce

7 thoughts on “S A’s Essay: Sam sends his apologies”

  1. And here we are, after several seasons of fighting relegation still seeing Cattermole and Larsson as the saviours of our midfield, that’s how little progress we have made and how bad the buying has been in the last 4 years. I like them both, but they should be no more than squad players by now; it’s why we are getting left behind Stoke, Southampton and now Palace.

    • Dead right. The way the club has been run over the past few seasons is nothing short of disgraceful. The first player we signed over the summer was Vergini. Remember him? He’s still a Sunderland player. We are short of centre backs and if O’Shea can’t play on Wednesday we only have Brown who is not the player he once was and just getting over another injury himself, and Coates who is hardly the most consistent player in the side. Oh I almost forgot we have another centre back on big money – Roberge who can’t always get a game for the U21s and hasn’t even got a squad number. So we end up with a mediocre full back playing in the centre of defence.

      As far as I know we still have the registration of Alvarez who can’t get a game for anyone at the moment until that situation is resolved. Big money signings Defoe and Lens are not the first names on the team sheet. Lens’s attitude is questionable to say the least. I can understand him thinking a warm down is unnecessary when he never even got off the bench but he is a professional for God’s sake getting paid a fortune. I think I’d be prepared to run up and down the pitch a few times for thirty grand a week.

      M’Vila, our one successful import of the summer, is only on loan and will be attracting the attention of other clubs. Rodwell is either injured or suspended and frankly hasn’t justified his transfer fee.

      Matthews was known to be injury prone and I’ve seen so little of him I wouldn’t recognise him if he stood behind me in the queue at Lidl.

      Since Short assumed the Chairmanship and appointed his inner cabinet we have seen a succession of managers come in and have to make do with a rag bag set of players brought in by others, then try to assert their own styles only to be replaced themselves and the whole shebang starts again.

      You are right ifos. That we see Larsson and Cattermole as essential to the side shows that rather than progressing we are going backwards.

      Sam wouldn’t have been my first choice but if he is determined to be a manager, not just a coach, we might get somewhere in the next couple of years but I suspect it will be via Burton, Brighton and Birmingham rather than Liverpool, Manchester and Stoke!

  2. He is gonna have to bring in some players next transfer window,that said Catts back has to be a big boost.Larsson would be nice too,so that’d be 2 positions covered for me.We need quality but they must also need fighters in there now ….too many lightweights and players content to drift along.

  3. The way Allardyce is talking about injuries, real and potential, suggests that he’s already given up Wednesday’s match. I hope that’s not true but he doesn’t have much time to try and turn the squad around.
    If we do lose that game (and, let’s be honest, what are our chances of anything better than a draw?), that might leave us on shaky ground against Aston Villa next Saturday. And if we can’t beat Villa at home…
    I’d love see us this time next week with four more points and a little bit of optimism to take into the January window. I’m finding it hard to believe, though.

  4. A couple of hundred words here that actually say nothing. Absolutely nothing! Another manager comes to Sunderland and is utterly dumbfounded by the unprofessional and sloppy nature of our squad, another manager talks about the cost of individual mistakes; because they aren’t good enough and they seem unwilling to learn.
    No explanation for Mannone, no explanation for Graham over Defoe, no explanation for leaving Gomez on the field. Did he give up this game to prove a point to the squad players and Short?
    Sick and tired of it all.

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