Fan expectations and how that impacts the club

Well bingo. It’s nothing to do with fans. It’s how much and how well you spend.
Yup. But for those who can't spend gazillions and get the top level players, who have a top mental attitude and resilience....

Some of our players are almost pub level. Playing in front of huge expectant crowds can, and has had a negative impact at times, where its been too much for some players.

That's not a dig, it's simply a fact.
 


Yup. But for those who can't spend gazillions and get the top level players, who have a top mental attitude and resilience....

Some of our players are almost pub level. Playing in front of huge expectant crowds can, and has had a negative impact at times, where its been too much for some players.

That's not a dig, it's simply a fact.
But that comes down to being badly run, poor recruitment and no plan. If it was in place then there’s no issue. Just like every other club. The argument from the OP is were worse for it than other clubs, we’re not.
 
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But that comes down to being badly run, poor recruitment and no plan. If it was in place then there’s no issue. Just like every other club. The argument from the OP is were worse for it than other clubs, we’re not.
I don't think we are the worst. But there isn't many clubs of our size lurking about the pub division for years. The players at times weren't comfortable in front of a huge expectant crowd. And there's not many of that level and ability who are.

Mcdonald, the drunk mag, would often say ourselves and Newcastle were known for having crowds that were either a huge asset or huge hindrance, depending on how the land lay at the time.
 
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I don't think we are the worst. But there isn't many clubs of our size lurking about the pub division for years. The players at times weren't comfortable in front of a huge expectant crowd. And there's not many of that level and ability who are.

Mcdonald, the drunk mag, would often say ourselves and Newcastle were known for having crowds that were either a huge asset or huge hindrance, depending on how the land lay at the time.
Aye but that would be the same for anyone of the top 20 traditional teams that go through what we have.
 
RR has interviewed a fan of a few Championship clubs I see over the last week or so and basically asked the same set of questions like the gap between League One and the Championship, why big clubs struggle to gain momentum and what Sunderland fans can expect, and it surprises me they all basically say the same thing.

How fast you can drop give the relentless nature of the games if you lose 2-3 on the trot. How important it is to enjoy it. The need to stick together. The fact the gap between the bottom of the league and the top of League One isn’t huge.

All very good points.
 
I was just reading the recent Roker Report interview with a Huddersfield fan and he said something that resonated with me (bolded in purple):




I think this has often been at the crux of our success and failure, trying to balance the high expectations of the fanbase that can help maintain high standards with the reality that it is never going to be plain sailing all the time, and if players and staff are actually given the opportunity to recover in the eyes of the fans once they've been through a poor run or an outright failure.

I think we all understand that this is a big club and standards should be higher than some others, but at the same time if it results in constant failures is there space for us as a fanbase to reflect on that and amend expectations as strategy, like even though we all want a 100 point season in our heart of hearts, tempering that to something much more realistic and achievable, gives the club space to makes some errors in the knowledge that that we aren't going to lose our shit about it.

In recent years I have probably, as a strategy, had lower than average (compared to average Sunderland fans) expectations as a countermeasure. We're all individuals but as a fanbase we're also a collective, sometimes I feel like the expectations are so high it makes the club buckle at the first sign of poor form and the club act by sacking the manager or make a rash transfer decision etc

Spot on.

I think it's a good general philosophy of life to have high hopes but low expectations.

That way if things go well, you'll be on cloud 9, but if they don't it's easier to shake it off.
 
I don't think we are the worst. But there isn't many clubs of our size lurking about the pub division for years. The players at times weren't comfortable in front of a huge expectant crowd. And there's not many of that level and ability who are.

Mcdonald, the drunk mag, would often say ourselves and Newcastle were known for having crowds that were either a huge asset or huge hindrance, depending on how the land lay at the time.
It's called being a traditional big club with big support and underachieving.

Turning up in huge numbers during the worst period in the clubs history and clapping like seals is just as damaging.
 
The thing is I don't think we've had high expectations. The expectations are no higher than a club of our size should expect.

If anything I think our expectations and ambitions should be higher. You've got some fans on here saying they'd be satisfied to consolidate our position and remain in the championship for several years, if that happens them so be it, but that shouldn't be our objective. Our objective when outside of the PL should always be promotion and when we're there it should be constant improvement.


His performances crushed him. He was finished on his debut against Celtic, utterly woeful.
Grayson should have been sacked the moment he suggested signing Steele.
 

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