The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
‘Crushing blow’ but Dodds is up for the challenge
HONEST Mike Dodds addressed the absence of injured Jack Clarke at Sunderland for the next six weeks and admitted: “it’s a crushing blow but now I must control the controllables.”
The interim head coach learned of Clarke’s fate on Wednesday morning and said he soon had to process the information and move on knowing he would be without the club’s most influential player for a lengthy spell.
Dodds said: “Obviously he played 90 minutes at Birmingham and he rolled his ankle in the game.
“Even when I spoke to Jack myself the plan was for him to train later on in the week [leading up to the Swansea game last Saturday which he missed]. But the swelling just didn’t come down.
“Jack was fairly upbeat and I think his feedback was a semi-positive one. I wouldn’t say it was positive because he wasn’t training but the plan was to give him the weekend [off ]. We came to this week early on and the rate of progress wasn’t what we expected or hoped.
“So we made an appointment for him to go and see a specialist on Wednesday morning. To find out what was going on and obviously the feedback is the feedback which is a crushing blow. But at the same time I’ve got to control the controllables. It’s something now for the next six weeks that won’t be in my head or my thoughts.”
How to cope without Clarke is at the forefront of Dodds’ mind and he added: “Like I’ve said a thousand times, it’s a massive blow for us but losing Jack Clarke would be a blow for any team in this league. So yes, for someone coming in and being in the role for a week, it’s not the news you want. But at the same time I processed it Wednesday morning when the physio department told me the outcome and then from yesterday afternoon onwards it was full focus on, ‘right we haven’t got him now, I’ve got to control what I can control, so let’s prepare the team to go to Norwich and come back with three points.’”
Asked how the team might play he continued: “We plan game to game in terms of our day-to-day focus but we try to have future games in our eyeline.
“Look, some weeks we will play a winger, some weeks we won’t play wingers. So in terms of direct replacements for Jack, let’s not beat around the bush, there isn’t one, not just in this football club, probably in the whole league. For me he would definitely be in the top one or two wingers in the league and you could argue if you were picking the best players in the league he would be in that argument.
“So in terms of replacing Jack Clarke with Jack Clarke that isn’t going to happen. So what we have to try and do is come up with maybe a slightly different way of playing. We need to come up with other ideas to get the most out of the other players we’ve got who can play in those areas of the pitch.”
Being more cautious is not one of them. Dodds said: “I think there’s got to be a strapline in all the games around what Sunderland are. I don’t think we can be passive in any of the games.
“I had a similar question [the previous week] about the Leeds game which sort of implied we sat off them. But if you watch that game back we denied them space and when the ball went in certain areas of the pitch we were really aggressive. So it might be the case that we might have to concede some territory but in terms of a Sunderland team, we can’t be passive and we won’t be passive in how we approach the game. So regardless of Jack Clarke or not Jack Clarke, we still have to have a running thread of how we want Sunderland to look. And that is something that’s going to be my responsibility for the next 12 games to find a solution for that. It’s really challenging and I am looking forward to that challenge.”