DAN NEIL has called on Sunderland to use the international break as a big reset heading into the final eight games of the Championship campaign.
The Black Cats have fallen well off the play-off pace after six defeats on the bounce, Saturday’s 0-0 draw with QPR bringing an end to that unwanted losing streak. That being said, Mike Dodds was disappointed with the performance of his side at the Stadium of Light.
It was a display he called naïve and laboured – and there was very little room for argument. Something Neil echoed in his post-match interview.
I think you can take that as a little positive but at the end of the day we want to win every game,” Neil said. “I think Doddsy has said it in the past, we don’t go into games to lose or draw, we go in to win them. We set up today to win and obviously it didn’t pan out that way.
READ MORE; The warning sign for club hierarchy on worrying afternoon: Phil Smith’s Sunderland AFC conclusions.
Sunderland ended their six-game losing run with a 0-0 draw against QPR on Saturday afternoon, but it was far from a vintage performance at the Stadium of Light.
Here’s Phil’s key conclusions from the game…
SUNDERLAND DESTINED FOR MID-TABLE FINISH With eight games to go, Sunderland sit thirteen points adrift of the top six and nine points clear of the bottom three. We can now say with almost certainty that this campaign will finish in midtable. Anthony Patterson’s excellence meant that Sunderland at least ended their losing run, and probably drew a line under any sense of growing panic that they risked being drawn into an unlikely relegation battle. Given the number of teams below them and the form of those at the bottom, they probably already have enough points on the board and one win will certainly do it. With Jack Clarke and Patrick Roberts likely to have four or five games before the campaign ends, they’ll get that.So there was a little bit of relief here, amid the bitter disappointment. But it does leave Sunderland facing up to something they have arguably not had since the 2010/11 season: a run-in where there is next to nothing to play for. Given their position at the start of December, it’s an extraordinary collapse and can fundamentally be pinned down to two key decisions: sacking Tony Mowbray without securing a high-calibre successor and failing to correct last summer’s transfer shortcomings in the January transfer window. This point probably means that Sunderland will be able to edge through to the end of the campaign without need for further change, but it is now a campaign destined to end as a major missed opportunity.
