Mike Dodds may be an optimist but he no Sunderland fool

Hence in the wake of Tuesday’s home defeat against leaders Leicester City, Mike Dodds said the Black Cats ‘have not given up ’on the play-offs. Dodds may be an optimist, but he is no fool.

After five successive defeats, and with a trip to face to automatic promotion contenders Southampton to come this weekend, he knows that Sunderland’s chances of making the top six are already circling the plughole.

READ MORE: Mike Dodds' every word ahead of Southampton vs Sunderland

Nine points may be all that separates Sunderland and sixth spot but it is also all that stands between the Black Cats and the bottom three and, given recent results and performances, it is no surprise that there have been dark mutterings in some quarters involving the word ‘relegation’.

For the record, I do not expect Sunderland to be relegated - although if their losing streak continues much longer, they will be casting some anxious glances over their shoulder.

But the very fact that, for the first time since Sunderland’s return to the Championship, the word ‘relegation’ is even part of the conversation should be enough to set the alarm bells ringing in the Stadium of Light boardroom.

Unless there is a dramatic upswing over the final ten games, Sunderland’s end-of-season performance review will make for grim reading.

Sunderland's interim head coach Mike Dodds (Image: Ian Horrocks)

The club has trumpeted its data-first approach, but those crunching the numbers will find themselves grappling with some uncomfortable truths.

Four strikers who (at the time of writing) have scored just three goals between them; a head coach in Michael Beale who lasted only a dozen games; the club’s longest losing streak in getting on for a decade (Sam Allardyce was the last Sunderland manager to lose five league games in a row, in December 2015, before turning the tide and leading the Black Cats to Premier League safety in the New Year).

And that is before you consider the intangibles, the things that can’t be entered into spreadsheets and plotted on graphs, such as the loss of goodwill that followed Tony Mowbray’s sacking and the appointment of Beale, the fury that greeted Black Cats Bar debacle in January (we’re still waiting to hear the outcome of the ‘immediate review’ into exactly what happened), and the general regression in performances that has left Sunderland a pale shadow of the side that offered so much entertainment last season.

In short, a season that promised so much has descended into a grind.

Even though there are ten games still to play, it already feels as though Sunderland’s season is a busted flush.

So can we please just fast-forward until May, hold the inquest, learn the lessons, address the shortcomings, and get ready to start all over again.

I’m not a fan of the International Football Association Board and its constant tinkering with the laws and regulations that govern the game.

They would do better to concentrate on finding officials who can correctly and consistently apply the rules that already exist before experimenting with blue cards, sin-bins, and the like.

But if IFAB needs to justify its existence, there is one change that could make a difference.

How about punishing a first instance of timewasting with a ‘team yellow card’, rather than booking an individual player?

Any player who wastes time after their side has received a team yellow card risks a second booking, and therefore a red card.

The team yellow card would only relate to timewasting offences, so a player who went on to be booked for a foul, for example, would not receive a second yellow - and nor would a player already on a booking be sent off if their side was subsequently shown a team yellow.

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But it would prevent multiple players from one side wasting time, and with each accepting a booking as the price of running down the clock.

Football fans are short-changed when teams kill the game by wasting time, and the early-season directive to referees to add on more stoppage time appears to have all-but died a death.

Maybe this is one rule change that would be worth a try.