A win is a win much like a defeat is a defeat and right now, Sunderland can’t buy the former.
As the final whistle blew at the Stadium of Light to signal a fifth straight Championship defeat for Sunderland there was almost an element of confusion inside the Stadium of Light. Strictly speaking, this is the club’s longest run of consecutive defeats since 2015 back in the Premier League days. That run, however, included games against Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool which provides some overriding context. Sunderland’s current run of defeats have come against Huddersfield Town, Birmingham City, Swansea City, Norwich City and Leicester City. To that end, there might have been a greater sense of anger and frustration from the home supporters as their hopes for the season were all but extinguished.
And yet interim head coach Mike Dodds and his side were applauded off after what qualified as an encouraging display, at least in the second half, against the Championship leaders.
‘Sensational’ was the term used by Dodds after the game when summarising his team in the second 45 minutes. That may be a little bit extreme, but Dodds has right to feel enthused by the reaction of his players and the fist they made of things against Enzo Maresca’s side.
Sensational, however, would be more equipped to sum up Leicester’s display in the opening 15 minutes on Wearside as they threatened to blow Sunderland away with the pace and flair, guile and tenacity of Jamie Vardy, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Stephy Mavididi. Sunderland, quite simply, couldn’t cope in those early stages and if that is the benchmark for where they need to get to in terms of challenging for a return to the Premier League, there remains some way to go.
Leicester, one of the most dominant teams in terms of average possession and early goals in the Championship this season, were running roughshod over Dodds’ side. The fears before kick-off were emerging. From a Sunderland perspective, it was as flat and uninspiring as their four previous defeats, typifying a season which has unravelled at an unprecedented rate since the sacking of Tony Mowbray.
There are times in a season where you can often pinpoint where things went right or wrong – Mowbray’s dismissal a clear case in point – yet this defeat to Leicester was an embodiment of their season in 90 minutes. Sunderland failed to lay a glove on Leicester in the first half, recording an xG of just 0.05 having attempted just two efforts at goal as they laboured once more in the absence of high-flying winger Jack Clarke.
Contrast that with the second half where Sunderland had 15 efforts at goal and limited Leicester to just one attempt and it was much more like what Dodds, and supporters, are keen to see, with consistency again being the key metric.
But it wasn’t just their attempts at goal and stifling Leicester which was pleasing. They were much more fluid and aggressive in possession; they pressed Leicester closer towards their own goal whilst moving much higher up the field themselves as can be seen below via StatsBomb’s passing network map between the first half and second half. Suddenly, it felt a little more akin to the Sunderland of old.
“I'm really conscious answering the question [about taking positives from the game] because that's five [defeats] on the bounce now and we have to buck that trend as soon as possible. But I do feel the second half in particular, and I said this in my last spell around what is a Sunderland team, I think we gave a snapshot in terms of a blueprint to how we want to play, how I want to play and how the players want to play,” said Dodds.
“I don't want to be that stats guy and start throwing stats at people because I know that can be irritating and can be manipulated, but one of the guys just said their xG in the second half was 0.01 which, I think if you went through the whole of the EFL there wouldn't be many games where the opposition gets nullified that well, and we're talking about the best team in the league as well.
“I keep saying this; the group are in a good spot. But we're also really aware we have to buck this trend. I do feel one win is just going to go into two wins and three wins and four wins. At the moment, it's just not falling for us.
“I've had them now for three games and all three games have got 'L's' by the result which I'm conscious of, but at the same time I feel like each game we've got better and better. I'm going to take loads of positives from that.”
While Sunderland have wedded themselves to a data approach, it is the mentality of the players in the second half which will have outshone the numbers – typified by the temerity of teenager Chris Rigg on his first start for the club.
The relative hopes and expectations placed upon a 16-year-old can be seen as quite daunting, and even a little misplaced, yet Rigg’s first full start in the Championship demonstrated why there are those hopes and expectations of a player destined for big things in the future.
Despite the calibre of the opposition, which included Harry Winks; a player 12-years his senior, a player who has made over 250 first team appearances, a player signed for £10million last summer who has made over 20 appearances in the Champions League for Tottenham Hotspur, has featured in the Europa League, played 128 times in the Premier League, has experienced Serie A and has 10 international caps with England as well as being ranked second in the Championship for pass completion this season, the teenager rarely looked out of place throughout a bright 81 minutes.
The midfielder registered the highest dribble and carry on-ball-value (OBV) for Sunderland at 0.17 and was only bettered by Leicester’s Mavididi (0.31) and Abdul Fatawu (0.19). He won seven of eight ground duels, completed 100 per cent of his dribbles and had a 74 per cent pass success rate. Only Trai Hume was ranked higher than Rigg for Sunderland as an overall rating in the game as per Fotmob.
“Taking into account he's a first-year scholar, people should be excited by Riggy," said Dodds. "I'm excited to work with him over the next few years. I think he's potentially a wonderful talent."
Rigg’s coming of age display was also aided by the impact of Dodds’ double substitution on the hour mark when introducing both Romaine Mundle and Adil Aouchiche. The change led to a switch in tactical approach from Dodds and provided a kind of unorganised chaos that Leicester struggled to deal with. In that moment, against what seemed like the odds, Dodds resembled a head coach with a plan which was working, with supporters given more to shout about than a hefty Hume tackle which had been about all they could feel enthused by in the opening 60 minutes.
"The whole mentality thing has been thrown at the group in previous weeks, and I can understand why, but I saw a group fully committed to Sunderland football club,” explained Dodds. “I saw a group who is completely on board with what we’re trying to do, I saw a group that has not only gone toe-to-toe with the best team in the league but were better than the best team in the league [in the second half].
“I can be really negative around the first 15 minutes, but I’ve also got to give [Leicester] some credit because they moved the ball so quickly, so fair play to them because in some of the moments I quite liked the way we jumped out and pressed but they’ve got real quality in their team. But I’m pleased, with the fact we came through that 15-minute spell because it was starting to look like it was going to be a long night.
“One thing I will say about the group is that I will never question their desire to play for this football club, I’ll never ever question that.”
Despite the isolated positives, Dodds is not shirking away from the fact Sunderland remain in a hole. For all they forced Leicester into one or two problems, the league leaders were able to do what league leaders do in seeing out the game to clinch a promotion-esq shut-out on the road, something Sunderland desperately need themselves.
Heading into another difficult fixture at the weekend against Southampton, Sunderland are second bottom of the Championship’s form table over the course of the last 10 games with seven points from a possible 30 – only Rotherham United’s dismal run of one point from their last 10 games is worse. On top of that, this defeat to Leicester was Sunderland’s 17th defeat of the season in just 36 games. Only four teams; Blackburn Rovers, Stoke City, Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham have lost more games in the Championship this season.
A sixth consecutive defeat at St. Mary’s this weekend would resemble their longest losing streak since the beginning of the 2013-14 campaign under Paolo Di Canio, caretaker boss Kevin Ball and Gustavo Poyet where they lost seven of their first eight Premier League games of the season, including six in a row, before Poyet earned their first win of the campaign in game nine against Newcastle United.
They are not stats that lend themselves to encouraging a fanbase to buy into what the club is trying to do over a longer term period. With relegation now more likely than a top six finish, with Sunderland nine points above the Championship’s bottom three and 10 off the play-off spots, Dodds, despite this defeat, will need to harness the encouragement and enthusiasm he was able to fathom from his squad in the second half against Leicester, inspired by the likes of Rigg, to hold onto that diminishing faith and enthusiasm ahead of a significant summer period for the club.
Remarkably, it's a task Dodds continues to feel encouraged by.
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