Sunderland look doomed after latest false dawn
Hope is a fragile thing for Sunderland, a gentle flame too easily extinguished. Having pulled off a shock victory at promotion-chasing Derby County on Good Friday, rekindling belief they could avoid relegation, they predictably followed it up with a painful home defeat against Sheffield Wednesday.
It has been like this for far too long, it has become a habit, first in the Premier League and now in the Championship. League One beckons.
Sunderland have not won two games in a row since November 2016 and this was their 12th home defeat of the season. Even when they play reasonably well, they still lose. That is one of the worst things you can say about a team.
With six games left and with just one win in their past 14, they are five points from safety. They look doomed.
After spending so long clinging on to their place in the Premier League, surviving but never anything more during a decade-long stay, they look as though they will tumble through the Championship without even so much as gaining a foothold. To put the scale of their demise into some context, only four teams have been relegated from the second tier the year after falling out of the top division.
“We did more than enough today to come away with a good result and I haven’t always been able to say that,” said manager Chris Coleman. “I can’t fault us, but I can fault the referee. He should have given us a penalty and they should have been down to 10 men, and then the game is very different.
“We conceded two soft goals, but, overall, it’s difficult to say to the players they’ve played badly. The thing is, I’d rather play badly and win. We just haven’t had any luck. We had the performance, but not the result.
“We’re not giving up. We can beat any team in this division, we’ve seen that already this season, so it’s not inconceivable we can still stay up.
“If we hadn’t had the performances we’ve had in the past two games, maybe I wouldn’t believe that, but I do. It’s still possible.”
Indeed, Sunderland were the better team for much of the first half, Donald Love firing over from distance before free-kicks from Bryan Oviedo and Aiden Mcgeady were saved by Joe Wildsmith. The second half was more entertaining as Wednesday took the lead, against the run of play, with their first shot on target, Lucas Joao smashing home a knock-down from Atdhe Nuhiu.
Sunderland responded immediately, George Honeyman heading in Lynden Gooch’s excellent cross to the far post. The home side looked the more likely to score a second and had a strong penalty appeal turned down, but it was the visitors who went in front again thanks to some terrible defending at a set-piece, goalkeeper Lee Camp motionless as the ball flew over four Sunderland players and was tapped in by Tom Lees.
A few minutes later, Wednesday killed the game with a third goal from Nuhiu, as Sunderland once again failed to deal with a cross in the box.
“We didn’t have a lot of chances but we were efficient when we did,” said Wednesday manager Jos Luhukay. “Sunderland had the chances to score more than one, but we had a fantastic goalkeeping performance. We have moved away from the dangerous situation at the bottom of the table and can look forward to the remainder of the season.”
Sunderland
Subs
Booked Sheffield Wednesday
Subs Booked Referee