LIGHT HAS GONE OUT!
Successive relegations for pitiful Sunderland... and the players didn’t even know it
HOW in keeping it was with this calamitous season that, after time was called on a chaotic finale, Sunderland’s players and supporters did not even know they had been relegated to League One.
There was no lap of dishonour, no terrace uprising, no stricken bodies on the turf and no tears — crocodile or otherwise — after this 2-1 defeat in which they had led with five minutes to play. Instead, they headed for the dressing room where news of their fate was discovered, a second demotion in 12 months.
In a campaign where nothing has added up for Sunderland, it seems apt that even their maths failed them at the death.
Chris Coleman’s side are six points from safety with two to play but, as Burton face fourth- from- bottom Bolton next weekend, it means one of those teams will have at least 41 points and the Black Cats can only achieve a maximum of 40.
Coleman admitted: ‘ Yes [ they didn’t know about relegation], word spread when they got back in the dressing room.’
It was also telling and entirely symptomatic of a club so badly lacking in leadership that not one of those players then emerged to talk to the press and front up to their shortcomings. Then again, half of this squad have been hiding all season, so that was no surprise. They certainly went missing in the final stages here as they turned victory into defeat against Nigel Clough’s Burton, whose survival hopes remain alive.
The moment Sunderland’ s supporters goaded their former favourite Darren Bent as he warmed up in the first half you just knew he would have the last laugh, it has been that sort of perverse season at the Stadium of Light. But when Bent equalised with just four minutes remaining the humiliation was far from complete. Seven minutes later the visitors had a winner deep into i njury- t i me when Liam Boyce pounced.
Still the drama was not over and Sunderland t hought t hey had scraped a stay of execution after Paddy McNair bundled home, only for the goal to be ruled out for a push or handball — no-one quite knew which — by the midfielder.
And that was that, Sunderland were relegated to the third tier for only the second time in their history.
‘I apologise to the supporters for coming up short,’ added Coleman.
‘We didn’t have what was needed. It is a brutal experience but, over 44 games, we haven’t been good enough.’
Sunderland are only the fifth team in history to suffer consecutive relegations from the top- tier to the third and, with absent owner Ellis Short desperate to sell, there remains great uncertainty around the future of the club.
‘I don’t know where the club goes from here,’ said Coleman. ‘I don’t know what the plan is. Martin Bain [chief executive] is as much in the dark as me. But I still want to be the man to turn it around.’
Burton, meanwhile, are two points from safety after this heroic victory. They were trailing to McNair’s firsthalf blast and all but down when Bent turned in a close-range header.
A draw was not ideal for either side, however, and so the visitors pushed for a winner and they had it when Boyce flashed home a header from Ben Turner’s centre. Then came the confusion of the disallowed goal—initially awarded and then chalked off after a consultation between referee and linesman — and the gravity of the situation for Sunderland remained unclear even after the full- time whistle. In truth, they should have known long ago.