Cats summer recruitment will be vital

When the best team in the Premier League plays a team hurtling towards the Championship and decimated by injury, then a scoreline like Sunday’s 5-1 defeat, I suppose, is inevitable.

At least it is all over now and we all have a couple of months to lick our wounds before hopefully coming out with all guns blazing next term under a new boss.

That is the theory anyway, but I’m yet to be convinced that we have a team to bounce back, so this summer’s recruitment is vital but with our previous recruitment record that doesn’t fill me with much confidence.

To underline that point, it was significant to see Marcos Alonso lifting the Premier League trophy, a quality player and perfect example of Sunderland’s lack of judgement when it comes to player recruitment.

On his time on Wearside, it wasn’t difficult to see how good he was so why was he allowed to get away?

I have no problem with the effort the players put in at Stamford Bridge, at least the ones that started were prepared to play but despite somehow going ahead early on, there was only ever going to be one winner.

It is all about next season now. If we don’t come straight back up then every season after will be even more difficult as big clubs like Leeds, Sheff Wed, Derby and Villa are finding out.

Our younger fans, who have just started following Sunderland over the last 10 years, will have only known Premier League football so they are in for a culture shock next season but hopefully they will see a few more wins and a better outcome to the season than the one we have just endured.