If only the season ran from January to December...
WITH the Stadium of Light closed to supporters since March and with a Covid outbreak wreaking havoc with the Christmas fixtures, Sunderland fans will be glad to see the back of 2020.
The pandemic put paid to their promotion hopes last season when the season was curtailed, and it has severely disrupted the current campaign as the Black Cats – along with all clubs – struggle to play a contact sport in a world where social-distancing has become the norm.
But what of the games that have been played in 2020? How have Sunderland fared over the calendar year as a whole? And how does their record compare to that of their League One rivals?
If the season had run from January 1 to December 31, Sunderland would have finished third with only Portsmouth and Doncaster collecting more points.
The Wearsiders lost six of their 32 games – the fewest of any side who spent the entire year in League One.
And, again for teams that spent the entire year in League One, they finished with the joint-best defensive record having conceded 24 times – level with Pompey.
Their weakness came at the other end of the pitch, where their total of 44 goals scored ranked only seventh, behind Peterborough (54), Portsmouth and Doncaster (both 52), Burton Albion (49), Lincoln City (47), and Oxford United (45).
With so few defeats, it was the fact that Sunderland drew so many games that held them back. They drew 11 games and won only 15, while Portsmouth won 18 and drew seven, and Doncaster won 18 and drew just five.
Further down the table, the sides who joined – or dropped out of – League One in the summer begin to figure.
Hull City were relegated from the Championship in July and have played only 18 League One games in 2020, but their haul of 34 points is more than Rochdale, AFC Wimbledon, and Shrewsbury Town (all on 33), Burton Albion (31), and Bristol Rovers (28) managed in significantly more games spread over the entire year.
In fact Coventry City, who were promoted in June, earned more points (30) in their 12 League One games in 2020 than Bristol Rovers did across their 30 matches.
It’s no surprise that the three sides relegated to League Two in the summer – Bolton Wanderers, Tranmere Rovers, and Southend United – occupy the bottom three spots in the calendar year table.
But the fact that Wycombe Wanderers, who were handed a play-off spot in the summer and ultimately won promotion to the Championship, sit fourth-bottom tells the story of how they slipped from top of the pile at the turn of the year to eighth when the season was suspended.
Of course, one of the difficulties of comparing the records of teams in 2020 is that there is such a variation in the number of games the clubs played.
However you can factor that in by ranking clubs according to points-per-game.
In a points-per-game table, Sunderland sit eighth with 1.75ppg – or fourth, if you restrict it to sides who spent the whole of 2020 in League One.
Coventry and Rotherham United, who were both promoted automatically last season, take the top spots with 2.5ppg and 2ppg respectively.
They are the only sides to have averaged 2ppg or better, which is generally seen as the benchmark for automatic promotion from League One.
At the bottom end, last season’s relegated sides occupy three of the bottom five positions, but things look ominous for Swindon Town – who were promoted in the summer – who are next-to-bottom with 0.85ppg and Burton Albion, who are third-bottom having averaged only 0.91ppg over 34 games.