When Mike Dodds took interim charge of Sunderland for the first time this season back in December he was faced with the daunting prospect of trying to halt a run of just two wins in nine games against the teams sitting third and fifth in the Championship table. This week he faced a similar challenge.
On paper, trips to Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion represented a tough examination for Dodds and his team, much like they did back in December. But while Dodds may not have come thorough in quite the same flying colours like four months ago where he took maximum points, this was, finally, an encouraging week for the interim head coach. Four points from six, two clean sheets and an emerging sense of the oil tanker turning, or at least putting on the brakes, has offered a slight shift in momentum.
The Championship is synonymous with the absurd. Eight days prior to their trip to Elland Road, Sunderland shipped five goals at home to a Blackburn Rovers side battling relegation and who hadn’t won away from home since November. That same Blackburn side then went and lost 5-0 to Bristol City before going on to upstage Sunderland’s resilient display at Leeds with a smash and grab 1-0 victory. Sunderland, by contrast, were held to a goalless draw at the Stadium of Light by Bristol City before emulating that scoreline themselves at Leeds and going on to earn a shutout victory over West Brom at the Hawthorns. Once again, it leaves you wondering how to make sense of it all.
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“I say it every time we step onto the pitch; we want to win every game of football,” said Dodds. “We won’t be setting up to draw games of football.
“There was a lot of praise levelled at the group for Tuesday night [at Leeds] and I had to make it really clear to them that this football club doesn’t celebrate draws. Thankfully today, we had another really solid performance and we got the goal at the right time.
“It’s about trying to get that balance between performance and results. It’s a results-based industry.
“We want to be a little bit more fluid in possession but out of possession I can’t criticise them, I think they execute everything we want from them and we look like a really hard team to play against and if that’s your foundations moving forward you give yourself a really good chance.”
Dodds not so much scorned at the idea of the defeat to Blackburn being a line in the sand moment for his approach, but he certainly accepted the ramifications of where that defeat left his mindset moving forward – Sunderland unbeaten in three and yet to concede a goal since their Easter Monday nightmare. And it's a philosophy yielding small successes.
“The Blackburn game was a real learning curve for me and it was a real learning curve for the group in terms of; if I let them off five per cent, we can't afford, at this level, to come off the gas,” he told We Are Sunderland.
“Although I know the group, and have worked with the group for almost two years, I haven't been the decision-maker and that was obviously a game I want to forget but at the same time as I've said before; failure is the most important ingredient to success. I don't want to fail as publicly as that, but I learned some harsh lessons from that day and since then we've been a lot better.”
Again though, there is an element of rationalising required with regards to Sunderland’s improvement over the course of the last three games. They have dominated and found themselves unfortunate not to win against Bristol City, denied by an inspired goalkeeping performance from Max O’Leary who did his utmost to prevent any of the 20 shots Dodds’ team had at goal, before two rigid, defensively disciplined displays at both Leeds and West Brom.
The latter two results have provided satisfaction, yet it’s a week which Sunderland have seen both their play-off hopes officially ended as well as their safety from relegation mathematically secured. It’s both ends of the spectrum, even when it’s dull it somehow never quite is at the Stadium of Light.
“The end goal for this football club is the Premier League, as I’m sure it probably is for West Brom and a lot of other clubs who would pitch themselves at that top end of the table,” Dodds told We Are Sunderland.
“I’ve made it really, really clear that if we feel as though we can use the next three games as an experiment or use them as just ticking over until the end of the season and then expect next season to be a successful one then we’re really naïve. So these games are really important in terms of laying foundations, in terms of giving ourselves some momentum into next season and going away for the summer and having a belief in the group.
“I made that really clear to the group. Even here, there’s a sell-out away end. Let’s be completely respectful; if the fans felt as though it’s just three games to go until the end of the season then we wouldn’t get the numbers we get. They’re still hugely passionate about the football club and we owe everything to the fans as a group, so this group won’t come away from that.
“The Blackburn game was a really important one for me personally and this group won’t come off the gas in these next three games.”
For all of the flaws Sunderland have had since the turn of the year, given their drop off in form, Dodds reverting back to what worked so well in those two reverse fixtures in December was timely in that it gave Sunderland some grounding – not least given their recent record at the Hawthorns where they had lost on seven of their previous nine trips to the West Midlands.
Sunderland have seen several extremes in this part of the Black Country, from the winning exception almost a year ago to the day when Dennis Cirkin’s double provided a significant platform for the club to go on and reach the top six, to Paolo Di Canio’s slow amble across the field and subsequent ‘chin up’ gestures to an anguished away in what would be his final game in charge in 2013. There wasn’t as much riding on this one as either of those two encounters, with West Brom tapering off somewhat ahead of a likely play-off campaign while Sunderland remain the epitome of mid-table; inconsistent with neither the possibility of greater success or failure to strive for.
What transpired was, largely, as uneventful as it sounds aside from three minutes of relevant chaos to close out the half with Brandon Thomas-Asante’s red card and Pierre Ekwah’s exemplary finish minutes later to ensure Dodds earned his second win in 10 games and a double over West Brom this season - conversely Sunderland lost both games against 22nd placed Huddersfield Town this season in yet another example of what their season has represented and the unpredictable nature of the Championship.
Dodds referenced the desire to refrain from his players taking their foot off the gas and this week has certainly shown they aren’t doing that – which is commendable - but it remains far from the kind of top gear we have seen previously. At the moment, however, a conservative Sunderland is the most efficient Sunderland.
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