A Great Performance…
There are a few bits, so best to break this up, and I’m going to start with Saturday’s performance – because the Lads deserve a lot of credit.
They came out of the blocks after kick-off with an intensity that we maybe haven’t seen for a while – potentially when we completed the double over the Visitors. This has its slight frustrations in that a performance on this level would have given the likes of Forest, Brighton, and Fulham no chance on their visit to the Stadium of Light, but the players took it up a level.
The energy was there in the press, and we hunted in packs, and this gave us the base to have freedom in attack as we had faith in winning the ball back quickly.
On the subject of attacking, there was a different feel to us. Ok, it’s going to sound strange after a game where we didn’t find the back of the net, but very rarely this season have we looked so dangerous regularly during a game.
The orchestrator behind this was quite often Enzo Le Fée. The debate on his best role in the side pretty much began the first time we saw him on the pitch in the Championship when Le Bris put him out wide, but his recent minutes in the middle are showing how effective we are when he is involved in more of the action.
But part of the reason it was so effective against United was the willing runners we had ahead of Le Fee when he was in position. A regular feature of our play this season has been to check back and build again because of the lack of options ahead of the ball, but against United, the players seemed to be under instruction to continue their run after playing the initial pass.
Combine that intensity with quality in possession and willing runners, and it might hopefully give us some clues on where we’re heading in terms of style for next season.
National Headlines…
I know, we should be used to it by now – but after you watch a game like that, it’s ridiculous when you see the national media outlets talk of “Sunderland shutting out United” and being the first side to keep a clean sheet against them in the league this season.
If you hadn’t seen the game and just looked at all those headlines, you would have thought we’d parked the bus, and it was just by pure fluke that we’d managed to not let the mighty Manchester United score a goal against us.
Our opposition preview with Carl Anka from The Athletic gave an insight into how this works, and it seems to keep the Premier League where it needs to be when the emphasis is on the clubs like Manchester United, but the fact is, we made them look pretty average and on another day, given them a bit of a hiding.
The Puzzle Of Geertruida…
We’ve been talking about him a lot over the past couple of weeks or so and whenever we’ve done a Q&A on the podcast the questions about his future have regularly come in – but after this performance, it seems even more strange.
As we talked with Nick Barnes on yesterday’s Sunday Supplement, Geertruida ticks all the boxes of the profile of a player we seem to want in those positions. He’s quick, strong, athletic, he can drive forward, he can defend, and yet he’s almost made as many appearances from the bench as he has started from the off.
He has always looked the part whenever called upon, and since he hasn’t started since that win at the Visitors, where he played very well, it might not have been surprising if his head went down, but it looked the opposite from his performance against United.
None of us know if anything has gone on behind the scenes or how he trains, and especially if there was any fallout from the potential move to Liverpool falling through, but he could be one we’re scratching our heads about in years to come. This is also true when you also consider the agreed price of ~£18-19 million seems relatively cheap in today’s market.
Club Sale Rumours…
There’s been a bit of this going around over the last week or so, and I, for one, wouldn’t be surprised if it had some truth to it, and I also wouldn’t blame them one bit.
KLD has spent most of his twenties taking Sunderland from the third tier up to the Premier League. Now, if any of you are like me, you spent most of that period drinking far too much Guinness. From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense.
He took on a distressed asset, built it back up, and the best time to get out is at a perceived peak. This is where the structure of the Premier League comes into play. Several clubs have been locked in those mid-table places for years because the next step up is just something that is out of reach without ridiculous funding.
Ok, there are always anomalies to this, but usually this is the way it works. Spending big can also go wrong if we look at West Ham and Spurs this season. So they have a choice of regularly investing large sums of money to keep the status quo or sell up.
Time will tell, but they won’t be here forever, and the first step on that path might be in the form of an investment that leads to eventual new owners. Who knows what’s around the corner, but we’ll all still be here whatever happens, and that’s the important bit.
