Coleman losing sleep over Black Cats’ performances

MANAGING Sunderland has been tough for Chris Coleman - but he has never looked more dispirited after a game than on Saturday, writes STUART RAYNER.

The Black Cats are giving him sleepless night and, he says, needing a psychologist. He might have been joking.

Deadline-day arrivals Lee Camp, Ovie Ejaria and Ashley Fletcher made debuts.

However, they were not enough to prevent a 2-0 defeat to Ipswich Town, where all the mental failings which have dogged the club so long were on display.

Coleman was asked if it was the toughest defeat he has had to take since arriving on Wearside in November.

He replied: “Yes I think so. We had new faces, a good start for 25 minutes and the crowd was up for it.

“Even at a goal down I still felt we could do something but then to concede again when we did (an Adam Matthew own goal in firsthalf stoppage time) was a tough one to take.

“Every game that goes by and we are still in the bottom three, that tears another strip off you.

“For the first half an hour we were promising and the two front boys (Fletcher and Joel Asoro) were linking up well and Ovie grew into it.

“The goals were killer for us and it cannot keep happening.”

The problems seem to be mental, so do they need a sports psychologist?

Coleman added: “I don’t know about one for the team but I may need one!

“If you are standing round waiting for someone to give you a shake, that is no good. If you are standing around waiting for advice all the time, or for someone to get you up, that is no good. You need to get yourself up.

“We are in the Championship’ s bottom three, away to Bristol City next week and we either succumb to it, think it is too much for us - or we are bigger than that.

“As a manager the number of good night’s sleep you have during a season is not many.

“If we were an absolute waste of time and I thought we had no chance of getting out of this, I would probably go and say to Martin (Bain, the chief executive), ‘Come on, let’s have a chat – I can’t, we haven’t got it, there is not enough here.’

“Yet there is still a chance for us to get out of it and that is when you get the sleepless nights.”