Where did it all go wrong



Was built on sand as some of us have been saying for years. We buy players to make profit not to fit a team. We've regressed as we dont address clear failings. Looking at recent meeting minutes the club hasn't learned lessons and believe they're on right track. It's going to get worse before it gets better unless we see real change.
 
For me, it's a combination of the perfect storm of sacking Mogga and replacing him with the ineffective Beale (despite him producing the best, world class coaching, that Speakshite has ever seen) injuries to key players, getting rid of experienced players in Gooch, Batth, & Pritchard, Amad Diallo returning to his parent club, and diluting the squad with just too many young & inexperienced kids, who just don't look likely to make the grade, in the Championship.
 
We're going to be ok, we're in a better position that lots of other clubs that have been relegated to league one from the premiership.
Barnsley, Bradford, Wigan, Wimbledon etc
 
Mackemansj1 said:
Just 12 months ago we were playing some amazing football, scoring some of the best team goals I've ever seen a Sunderland side score. A team together about to make a late run into the play offs, we'd lose players but people came in and picked up the slack. Everyone seemed to be pulling in the same direction from manager players fans etc. It really felt like we were on the cusp of finding our way back to the top flight with an exciting young squad and the club having the feeling of those days under reidy or keano where anything seemed possible. Looking forward to the next game, walking upto the sol seeing people with smiles on their faces. What a difference a year makes eh.
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Set out stall out January before last that we're happy to have no ambition.

Allegedly aimed for top two this year but weakened the team instead of strengthening it. Then repeated this process throughout the season, including in the dug out.

No ambition off the pitch=no drive to succeed on the pitch
LostTheDressingRoom said:
Amad papered over big cracks in the team
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Dont agree... Amad added real quality to a team. Quality we've dismantled this season through selling, alienating and injury
 
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People talk about injuries affecting this season's performances and they have (11 players have been unavailable due to injury for 10+ games so far - Cirkin 31, Roberts 13, Huggins 16, Alese 36, Mayenda 16, Pembele 19, Dack 20, Rusyn 11, Evans 40, Embleton 32, Matete 28 - those last two don't include the games when they were out on loan). In addition Clarke has missed the last five games with no sign of a return. However, I'd argue that only Clarke, Cirkin, Roberts, Huggins, Alese, and maybe Evans, would be first choices if they'd not had long-term injuries.

But last season we had 9 players who missed 10+ games with injuries (Gooch 19, Ballard 29, Cirkin 20, Evans 25, Embleton 28, Stewart 36, Alese 22, Bennette 10, Huggins 48). At least five of them would surely have been first choices. Batth (9), Pritchard (7) and Simms (7) also all missed chunks of the season at important times.

So both seasons have been badly affected by long-term injuries, in many cases exceedingly long-term, like Evans (65), Stewart (41 out of 57 possible), Embleton (60), Cirkin (51), Alese (58) and Huggins (64).

However, the real difference between the two seasons is more in the quality of the players who have actually played rather than those who haven't! From last season's Top 20 appearance makers:
8 are no longer with the club (Pritchard, Batth, Diallo, Gooch, Michut, Gelhardt, Simms and Stewart) - and I would argue that Michut, Simms, and even Gelhardt, would vastly improve our current team
6 are currently out injured long-term (Clarke, Roberts, Evans, Embleton, Alese, Cirkin)
Only 6 of last season's exciting squad are still available (Patterson, Neil, O'Nien, Hume, Ba and Ballard), and four of them are defenders/keepers, so we only have Neil and Ba available from last year's attacking players!

All that experience and attacking potential has been replaced in the Top 20 appearance makers by the likes of Bellingham, Ekwah, Aouchiche, Rusyn, Burstow, Semedo, Seelt, Rigg, Dack and Hjelde (with Styles and Mundle waiting to crack the Top 20 by season's end!). Of those, surely we can only say that Rigg and maybe Bellingham have been successes (perhaps Ekwah on his day). Clearly recruitment has been very poor, and has wasted yet another golden opportunity for SAFC to achieve success.
 
Hongkongphooey said:
Dear me, how can you continually say the last three transfer windows and the players that have been brought in is down to bad luck. We had injuries to key players last year ffs but the squad had experience and a head coach who had the players respect. If you reckon that this seasons shambles is down to bad luck then you need your head examined.
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Still not paying attention I see. "Bad luck" refers to the concentrated number of injuries and suspensions over the past few months which we didn't experience last season. That is all.
 
PaulG said:
Still not paying attention I see. "Bad luck" refers to the concentrated number of injuries and suspensions over the past few months which we didn't experience last season. That is all.
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Bad luck doesn't cover the recruitment which is the issue, and we went in to the play off game against Luton without a CB, we suffered really badly from injuries last season too, Stewart, Simms, Ballard, Batth, Huggins, Evans, Alese, Cirkin, Pritchard all missed games last season through injury, so again you're wrong.
 
Hongkongphooey said:
Bad luck doesn't cover the recruitment which is the issue, and we went in to the play off game against Luton without a CB, we suffered really badly from injuries last season too, Stewart, Simms, Ballard, Batth, Huggins, Evans, Alese, Cirkin, Pritchard all missed games last season through injury, so again you're wrong.
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They didn't all miss games at the same time, which is the point you keep intentionally missing to allow you to continue to vent about bad recruitment. You clearly think that recruitment at this level should enable us to have almost a full first team squad in reserve, which is unrealistic.
 
PaulG said:
They didn't all miss games at the same time, which is the point you keep intentionally missing to allow you to continue to vent about bad recruitment. You clearly think that recruitment at this level should enable us to have almost a full first team squad in reserve, which is unrealistic.
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They did miss games at the same time, Stewart and Simms were both out injured at the same time, Evans, Stewart, Ballard, Batth, Huggins all missed the play off games. Try again.
 
It hasn’t gone wrong like

We made some mistakes and signed some poor players.

It happens

It seems football fans these days just want new owners every time there is a slight dip
 
PaulG said:
Was that bad luck or bad recruitment then?? 🤣
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Recruitment, lack of squad depth, the last 3 transfer windows have been shite, again that has nothing to do with bad luck. Still waiting for a dcm, the strikers have been shocking and we have too many inexperienced young lads padding out the squad. Anderson was brought in last January, that went well.
 

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