For Sunderland to face another year at this level is unthinkable – but we also said that last year
If Sunderland can’t climb back into the Premier League in the next three seasons, the club will spend longer away from the top level than they ever have before.
Since the first ever relegation in 1958, six seasons is the longest Sunderland have spent out of the top flight.
As things stand, in order not to set an unwanted new club record the requirement to not just win promotion from League One, but then take no more than two seasons to go up another level looks an enormously tall order. It can be done. In Sunderland’s solitary season at the third tier prior to the current spell at this level, Denis Smith’s team won promotion in 1988 and again in 1990.
More recently, since 2010, both Norwich City and Southampton have won automatic promotion from League One to the Championship and then up to the Premier League in back-to-back seasons.
Everyone has an opinion on why Sunderland have failed in their promotion quest in the last two campaigns.
They were mightily close a year ago and in the season just gone had their chance of winning promotion snatched away by the curtailment of the season.
For Sunderland to face another year at this level after the forthcoming one is unthinkable.
But we said that last year, and the year before.
Denis Smith took Sunderland from the third tier to the top flight in a three-year spell and deserves to be revered for that achievement, especially as he did it by creating a team who played football that was a joy to watch.
I don’t think too many people will be bothered whether Sunderland play good football in the coming year under Phil Parkinson, so long as they play winning football. That is all that matters.
The newly imposed salary cap won’t help. Having seen the financial mess his last club Bolton Wanderers got into, Parkinson will understand the reluctance of clubs to over-spend.
However, Sunderland command a level of support way above League One standards.
The combined attendances of the poorest supported seven clubs in League One came to well under Sunderland’s average attendance last season.
Now though, that extra support does not allow Sunderland to attract better players than the minnows by paying them more.
It wouldn’t be so bad if when Sunderland do return to the Premier League every other club was limited to the same amount Sunderland were able to spend!
There has been a huge response to the announcement of ‘The Absolute Record’, the new official Sunderland AFC history book I am currently completing with Mike Gibson and Barry Jackson.
A 400-page large-format hardback, it will be the most comprehensive book on the club ever published. It costs £30 and if ordered before the end of this month your name – or the name of someone you are buying it for – will be included in the book. To do this go to www.safctheabsoluterecord.co.uk.