It’s usually the month we wake up but this lot are just an April shower
Another game, another defeat, this time to Manchester United. It is all so predictable and with the goal drought continuing, a red card and three goals conceded, the pain and misery heaped on every Sunderland fan is becoming relentless.
Seb Larsson’s sending off has been a huge talking point and while I thought it was unbelievably harsh, it didn’t change a thing.
We were already a goal down and would still have lost, all it did was make the second half totally pointless from a Sunderland perspective.
April is usually the time of year that Sunderland finally wake up with a late season rally that ends in survival but there is no sign of that this time around for the Sunderland faithful.
Championship football is staring us in the face.
Man United did not have to do much to win, I thought both teams started slowly and there wasn’t much in it until Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s strike but that is what you get when you invest in quality.
Last season, Lamine Kone was immense but this season he has looked a shadow of the player he was then and I have no idea why that should be the case.
When Sam Allardyce signed him, he was an absolute colossus from the moment he clattered Yaya Toure, developing a great partnership with Younes Kaboul that was a huge part of the team’s revival.
The breaking up of that partnership just proves what a waste letting Kaboul go for a paltry fee has been.
There weren’t many positives but I thought Jason Denayer played well – he gives 100 per cent wherever he is asked to play. Didier Ndong was about the only other positive, at least he tries to make something happen, which makes it even harder to work out why he was benched for the two very winnable games against Burnley and Watford.
But let’s be honest. Losing to Manchester United isn’t the reason why Sunderland are in serious trouble, it is the home defeats to Middlesbrough, Palace, Stoke etc – the list goes on – that has seen to that.