Sunderland's miserable 2024 continued as they slumped to their 10th home defeat of the season against Millwall.
Duncan Watmore came off the bench to score against his former club and ensure Millwall's Championship status for next season as Sunderland continue to crawl towards the finish line in what has turned into a desperate campaign.
It's now just two wins from 11 games in charge for interim head coach Mike Dodds.
We Are Sunderland reflect on some of the key talking points from another home defeat:
Dan Neil's season is over
The biggest talking point from another weary afternoon at the Stadium of Light actually came off the field with the news midfielder Dan Neil’s season has come to an end with an ankle injury. The 22-year-old was missing from the teamsheet before the club confirmed a training ground injury will rule him out of the final weeks of the campaign.
Neil ends the 2023-24 campaign with 42 league appearances as a starter, with four goals and five assists to his name, Sunderland’s second highest goal contributor behind Jack Clarke’s total of 19. Since being taken out of the team by Alex Neil in the club’s promotion campaign of 2022, Neil has established himself as one of Sunderland’s key players, having captained the club on occasion as well and certainly falls into the bracket of players who have Premier League admirers. But his absence does provide a small window of opportunity for others in the closing weeks of the season, notably Callum Styles who we will come onto.
Neil’s impact can sometimes be overlooked, with the midfielder one of Sunderland’s best retainers of possession behind only Dan Ballard and Luke O’Nien – with the defensive pairing often the leading pass combination in games given their position and Sunderland’s style of play.
To give context, in the last five games prior to Millwall’s visit to the Stadium of Light, Sunderland, as a team, have not averaged over 85 per cent pass success. Neil, individually, has only averaged below that figure once in the draw with Leeds United. Twice in those five games Neil has registered 90 per cent or above pass success.
Sunderland, undoubtedly, need to aid Neil in that central midfield area in the summer to take away some of the burden on the 22-year-old but despite this being a disappointing season as a whole for Sunderland, Neil’s star has grown.
System stick or twist immaterial
Dodds’ biggest decision heading into the game was whether to change a formation which had yielded four points from six on the road at Leeds and West Bromwich Albion or sacrifice one of those defenders who had helped provide some of the defensive stability which has contributed towards five clean sheets in six games ahead of kick-off.
Dodds’ slip of the tongue in his pre-match press conference had hinted at a change to a back four but when team news landed it resembled a back five – perhaps dictated by injury and illness in the squad with Neil missing from midfield and Trai Hume deemed only fit enough for the bench if needed. Dodds has said previously how he does not necessarily see Timothee Pembele as a full-back just yet which, again, probably made up his mind as the Frenchman continued at right wing-back with Styles keeping his spot on the left.
It did allow for a return to the starting line-up for Aji Alese for the first time since January and only the third time this season as he slotted in as the left-sided centre-back, with a little reshuffle in Hume’s absence, and Jobe Bellingham almost tasked with fulfilling the Neil role in midfield of getting between both boxes with Bradley Dack replacing him up front.
It wasn’t quite copy and paste from the total conservative nature of the last two games, however, with Styles, in particular, handed more of a key role in drifting away from that left wing-back role to aid Sunderland’s attack, as we sometimes see from Hume at right full-back. Styles and Pembele did almost link inside the opening quarter-of-an-hour as Styles ghosted into the advanced midfield role and was found by a clever forward-thinking ball from Jobe where he then found Pembele on the edge of the area but his touch was a little too heavy.
Styles was involved again in the closing stages of the half when unchecked in the penalty area from a Clarke slide-rule pass, but the Hungarian struggled to get the ball out of his feet and, when he did to cross into the six-yard box, Dack had strayed ahead of play.
The decision to stick with the same system certainly aided Sunderland’s defensive structure, with Alese, Ballard and O’Nien rarely threatened as a central defensive trio, but it was the lack of attacking impetus which again proved concerning with just one shot on target, from either team courtesy of Chris Rigg’s speculative effort, just about summing up the nature of the first half – O’Nien the player to have racked up the most touches in the opposition box (3) also telling its own story.
Dodds amended things slightly at the break with the withdrawal of Dack for Hume which allowed Styles to move into a more distinguished midfield role but with little impact in the opening quarter of the second half, Dodds did change his shape with the introductions of Abdoullah Ba and Adil Aouchiche as Styles dropped back into a holding midfield two alongside Pierre Ekwah, with Clarke, Aouchiche and Ba behind lone-striker Jobe.
Again, however, there was little impact with the end product from those substitutes to little effect outside of Aouchiche seeing a goalbound effort cleared.
Despite the shift, Sunderland ended the game with just three efforts on target and yet another xG lower than 1.0 as their attacking struggles, which have plagued them throughout the season, show no signs of letting up and again highlighted just what is going to be needed in the summer.
Watmore strikes on return to end Sunderland's defensive improvement as back-to-back wins remain elusive
Dodds addressed the psychology of players returning to their old club ahead of the game with Sunderland, potentially, meeting two of their former players against Millwall in Watmore and George Honeyman.
Both players endured a relatively negative spell on Wearside as far as the club’s drop from the Premier League to League One is concerned, Watmore’s time in particular was also overshadowed by some severe misfortune with injuries before earning a contract down the A19 at Middlesbrough.
To his credit, Watmore has been able to rebuild his career in his time away from Sunderland with Middlesbrough and now Millwall while Honeyman, initially, stayed to help his club endeavour to get back to the Premier League before being moved on to Hull City after Sunderland failed to make it back to the Championship at the first time of asking in 2019. The midfielder joined Millwall in 2022 and started the game at the Stadium of Light before being replaced by his former team-mate, Watmore, who made the perfect impact.
“I do think when you they play against a former team, players somehow find an extra five or 10 per cent because they want to do well,” said Dodds. “Both players suit Millwall in terms of I think they’re really industrious, they will leave everything on the pitch, so they are a good fit for that football club.”
Watmore’s impact was instant for Neil Harris’ side as he found himself free at the front post ahead of Ballard to convert Ryan Longman’s inviting low cross to score against his old club. The 30-year-old scored just eight times during his seven years at the Stadium of Light, which highlights his injury struggles, a total he has almost eclipsed with this winner here for Millwall in little over a year at The Den.
Watmore’s strike also ended Sunderland’s recent run of three clean sheets – the last time Sunderland kept four consecutive clean sheets coming three years ago in League One when winning four straight against Swindon Town, Rochdale, Portsmouth and Accrington Stanley under Lee Johnson.
It means Sunderland also remain without back-to-back wins in 2024, having not won consecutive league games since Dodds’ second spell in interim charge with wins over Leeds and West Brom in December.
No closer to solving the Bradley Dack puzzle
Dodds admitted he needed to find the balance with his team selection between now and the end of the season given players' contractual situations. Dack is one who falls into that category, but we’re no further forward in knowing if he’ll be with the club next season.
Injuries may have forced Dodds’ hand when it comes to team selection, forcing Jobe to drop deeper into midfield and Dack leading the line. It’s a position we’ve seen him play before – against Preston North End and Rotherham United at beginning of the campaign – but today's start was just his sixth for Sunderland this season.
Therein lies the main issue standing between Dack and the club taking up the option of another year in his deal. He’s made just 16 appearances so far this campaign with one goal and one assist. Although most of those appearances have been from the bench, his move to Wearside hasn’t seen the goal return the club would have liked.
The 30-year-old had just eight touches inside the opening half an hour, indicative of the Black Cats' problems in the final third all campaign. When he did get on the ball, it was dropping into midfield, with Jobe pushing on to take his place up front. At half-time, Dack had just 11 touches in total, one in the opposition box, a cross to Ballard at the far post.
It was a surprise to see him replaced at the break - not that he’d had much of an input in the final third - you can only assume he’d picked up a knock, but it wasn't a performance that will warrant Sunderland’s hierarchy taking up the option of that additional year.
Corry Evans returns
Once more, there were few positives to take away from the Stadium of Light but Corry Evans’ return is one of them.
Evans has not featured for Sunderland in 15-months since the Wear-Tees derby win over Middlesbrough in January 2023 after sustaining a significant knee injury but was brought on in the closing stages having recovered from a slight groin setback of late. Evans has featured for the under-21s side recently as his future remains up in the air with the 33-year-old another who is out of contract in the summer.
Both Evans, and Sunderland, will be keen to use the remaining two games as a barometer as to where he currently is following his comeback and whether it will be worthwhile retaining the Northern Irishman in the summer, given Sunderland’s lack of experience elsewhere in the squad.
Jack Clarke vs Anthony Backhouse
One of the more intriguing battles on the pitch was not necessarily any head-to-head match-ups between opposing players, but rather between Sunderland’s talisman Clarke and referee Anthony Backhouse.
Clarke found himself booked early in the first half for obstruction, despite Millwall goalkeeper Matija Sarkic appearing to inadvertently throw the ball off the back of Clarke, who was positioned outside of the area. Clarke protested his innocence while Dodds could be seen confronting the fourth official over the decision in the technical area.
It put Clarke on something of a tightrope, something which almost worsened when colliding with George Saville soon after having overrun the ball on the edge of Millwall's penalty area. Clarke and Saville were both fully committed in the challenge, with Saville coming off worse as Clarke was reprimanded by the official.
Clarke's frustrations boiled over soon after when being obstructed on halfway by Honeyman as Sunderland threatened on the break, with Backhouse keeping his cards in his pocket.
Tensions also simmered late in the game, particularly between Ballard and Zian Flemming with both teams, perhaps, fortunate to keep all 11 players on the pitch.
There's only one to go at home
Mercifully for Sunderland supporters there is just one more game to go at the Stadium of Light this season.
A campaign which promised so much has failed to deliver in so many ways, with this their 10th league defeat on Wearside. Their push for promotion, or indeed even the play-offs, diminished long ago, but their home form is something which has also been worn away in recent months, having not won at the Stadium of Light since February’s 3-1 success over Plymouth Argyle.
Supporters, somewhat in vain, sang how ‘everything is going to be alright’ but there has been little substance to that in the second half of the campaign. Sunderland’s home form has improved slightly on last season’s haul of 30 points, but that's not saying much. Within that form they have also lost more at the Stadium of Light than in 2022-23. It’s no longer a growing concern for Sunderland but an outright problem moving forward.
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