Hopes pitch investment will boost home results
Sunderland are hopeful a sixfigure investment in the Stadium of Light playing surgace will aid better results and performances in the final stages of the season.
The turf badly deteriorated through the turn of the year and has had a notable impact on the style of play in recent home fixtures, particularly to Lincoln City and Doncaster Rovers.
A fortnight break from home action since the latter of those two fixtures has allowed the ground staff to carry out some remedial work, ahead of more substantive work in the future.
While Alex Neil says poor weather conditions last week will not have aided matters, he is hopeful there will be a notable difference going forward.
Speaking before Saturday’s home defeat to MK Dons, Neil said: “There's been work on it. Naturally, the weather has not been helpful with two major storms in the last three days, but I’ll go down and see it once I've overseen training.
“We've spent well more than £100,000 to try to fix it and make it better between now and the end of the season. That's certainly helpful and hopefully it will stand up to the remaining matches.”
Sporting Director Kristjaan Speakman spoke to the supporter collective earlier this week about the issue, with minutes from the meeting reading: “It is a stitch of artificial turf placed into the pitch roughly 250mm with 20mm acting as the grass above the surface. This hybrid system will last for three years, at which point a half-dig reconstruction will be required including new undersoil heating and irrigation. We will require a full summer for this project.”