SEND TOON TO OBLIVION
Sunderland ready for ultimate mission…
ONe way to get from the Stadium of Light to St James’ Park is to go up the hill, swing a left and head up Newcastle Road.
If Sunderland win at home against everton in the Barclays Premier League tonight they may as well rename it the road to oblivion.
For Sunderland, there have been few games in their history like the one they anticipate tonight. Victory not only secures what has long looked an unlikely Premier League survival, it relegates their great rivals Newcastle. It could do more than that. It could bury Newcastle.
Nobody wants to be outside the Premier League next season, not with a new TV deal that guarantees £100million to the club who finish dead last in 2017. If Newcastle go down they will do so with a top-heavy playing squad and, very possibly, without a manager. It may be a while before we see them again.
In Newcastle, they have all but given up. The online version of the Mag fanzine carried an article yesterday outlining a ‘ 20 Point Blueprint for Promotion’.
In Sunderland they expect only survival. In the club shop yesterday a group of middle-aged men were buying home shirts even though they will be out of date next week. ‘We are gonna have a party,’ said one. ‘And if you are going to a party you have to dress right.’ Go left and left again out of Sunderland’s training ground and before long you hit the beach.
When he played for the club in the early 1960s, Brian Clough used to comb the black sand for coal waste washed in by the tide. ‘I would ride my bike to Seaburn and collect it,’ Clough recalled.
These days the sand at Seaburn is golden again. Yesterday the footprints on it were those of pensioners, dog walkers and a lone kite flyer.
In early April, those sheltering from the wind and rain at the Tony minchella ice cream parlour peered out to see Sunderland’s players training by the sea. Without a win since mid-February and in danger of running out of time, manager Sam Allardyce had reached the ‘try anything’ stage.
‘The look on the lads’ faces was a picture,’ said centre forward Jermain Defoe. ‘But it was fun. It changed the mood a bit.’ Premier League survival — if that’s what it becomes — was not forged on the beach that Tuesday. Indeed, Sunderland lost their next game to Leicester.
That day, though, provided a window into the way Allardyce was changing his club inside and out, a club lurching through the wreckage of the Adam Johnson trial and, it seemed, towards the Championship. ‘You can get cocooned,’ said Allardyce. ‘It was good to get on the wet sand, hear the dogs barking.’
He had changed the club in January, too. The purchase of Wahbi Khazri, Jan Kirchhoff and Lamine Kone has proved fundamental to eventual and gradual improvement, as has improved fitness. Change. It’s what Allardyce does best. RAFA BeNITez’S road to Newcastle began with a scoreless draw as Real madrid coach at Sporting Gijon last August. Another 0-0 draw, at Aston Villa last Saturday, has left his gallant attempts to rescue his latest club in danger.
Benitez’s points haul at Newcastle averages at 1.11 per game while Allardyce’s is 1.14. Both would save you over a full season but the difference is that Allardyce was given his job last october while his rival’s tenure began only nine games ago.
Three weeks ago the former Liverpool manager was telling friends he would not manage in the Championship. Now, having been moved by the support, he is reconsidering.
Benitez and Allardyce don’t like each other. Allardyce has enjoyed beating those who belittled him down the years but his record against the 56-yearold is not terribly good. Tonight on Wearside, he has the chance to land a hammer blow.
Yesterday it took 20 minutes to drive from one stadium to the other. By the start of next season, they may as well be on different planets.