Reality bites for Coleman on frustrating night atVilla
From dreaming harsh realities. And all very much a world away from the one Chris Coleman had been hoping for this summer.
Because while Coleman had talked up the size of Sunderland as a club as part of his reasoning for walking away from Wales, the size of the task facing him is just as big.
It’s nothing he wouldn’t have known. It’s nothing Wales fans didn’t mention when trying to digest the shock of seeing the Euro 2016 hero join the Championship-strugglers last weekend.
But here it was playing out in front of him as his first game as a club manager in British football in sevenand-a-half years. It’s a long way from Lille and all that.
Indeed, it was only 11 days earlier Coleman had been stood at the Stade de France overseeing what turned out to be his penultimate game in charge of his country.
In his first game as new Sunderland manager, a 2-1 defeat leaves them four points away from safety.
There were a few times when he looked to the skies as Sunderland erred to spoil promising periods, or he put his hands to his face.
Seven players out injured, kids thrown on from the bench, no quick dreams, to fix, no going back now. It’s Burton away next, the team one place above the rock-bottom Black Cats who, in going down here, are now 15 games without a win in all competitions.
For all that, for all the quips as to whether he’d lost his senses in trying to change the Wearsider’s wayward fortunes, Coleman knew exactly what he was getting into, even if some are still getting their heads around it.
‘Someone’s got to be the man to turn this club around,’ was the gist of the former centre-back’s justification, citing the rewards on offer if he could be the one. The size of the following taken from the North East to the West Midlands on a midweek November night was an example of what he was alluding to.
They were already chanting his name before kick-off, Coleman striding towards the red-and-white call and applauding in his first act as a Black Cat.
And, according to those more familiar with how the side have been playing this season, there were some very promising early signs; snappy passing, high-energy, a bit more bite.
Then there was the goal that undermined all that – just ten minutes in – and brought those harsh realities to mind. Adam Matthews, the one Welshman in Coleman’s side with Jonny Williams out with a shoulder injury, made a surging run only to be felled, Villa countering clinically and Albert Adomah profiting at the far post the stricken Matthews would have defended.
Clearly, it’s still a time to be positive rather than the words of honesty he was never afraid to give Wales.
Still, any words were ripped up when Josh Onohma shot from outside the box and found a deflected second four minutes after the restart.
Coleman promised there was no magic box he had brought with him from the Wales dressing room, though that didn’t stop Sunderland fans believing an unlikely comeback was on when Lewis Grabban pounced 15 minutes from time, encouraging the visitors and antagonising dissatisfied home fans. They have every right to be given time; there is every reason to believe Sunderland are better than their current position.
But there was no instant impact, just mutual applause from his new fans as he made his way down the tunnel to the strains of Oasis’ ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’.
As Coleman moves on down a long road, so Wales have to now look forward without him.