Sunderland may have to a as they are not in a strong
I’ve got a bad back you know, so you’re lucky to have a column this week. At least I think I’ve got a bad back. You’ll have to ask my agent. Anyway, here goes ...
When Sunderland scudded Everton to secure survival in May, it was with a starting XI that if kept together would probably have finished this season in mid-table obscurity. Boring to some, but a welcome stride forward to most.
For the seventh successive game Sam Allardyce named an unchanged side because it was working. There were only two defeats in the final 14 games. The Everton result was not a surprise. Manchester United and Chelsea had also been beaten. Points were taken from Arsenal and Liverpool too.
More importantly, in a vital game at Norwich, a very similar side to Middlesbrough, Sunderland gave a 3-0 battering. The same Sunderland XI would more than likely have done something similar three days ago. Easy to say, but hard to think otherwise.
On Sunday only three of that XI began the first home game of 2016-17.
Sunderland have had a lot of luck since the Everton game; all of it bad. Matters were worsened by the FA’s disgraceful and unnecessary procrastination in employing Allardyce. But how much do they help themselves?
Kirchoff, Cattermole, Larsson, O’Shea, Borini and Jones are injured, as is Lamine Koné: allegedly. But what of the others who served the club so well last season?
With peculiar timing, Younès Kaboul, 30, has gone; sold to direct rivals Watford for £3.5m. Or to put it another way, a third of what Everton paid for Ashley Williams, 32.
Kaboul has left the club in circumstances that have only been explained to us by taxi