A nine-year spell at England’s premier competition came to an end last season when Sunderland were finally relegated from the Premier League. The club probably survived more relegation wars in the last ten years than the number of goals they scored last season. However, it was doom spelt all along for the Black Cats last season and after finishing rock bottom, they moved down to the Championship.
Things have not gone well for the Black Cats this season either. Sunderland have just won one of their 15 league matches this season and with only 10 points on the board, they stand in the relegation zone. The club is rock bottom, 24th in the Championship and has not registered a home win since last December.
After failing to guide an aimless Sunderland side to safety last season, Moyes resigned as the manager of the club in May this year. Simon Grayson replaced the Scot and has now been sacked after only eighteen games in charge.
It is a sad state of affairs for the club’s board and Martin Bain, the Chief executive of Sunderland and the former Rangers man, will now have to motivate the new manager Chris Coleman and the team to not get relegated from the Championships.
Often in these situations, two tricks that always help are the arrival of new players and the team to at least stop conceding goals if they cannot outscore. A defensive team builds a resilience in the side, upon which the club can base its rebuilding. Therefore the arrival of a new goalkeeper could possibly solve two problems at once for Sunderland.
It is being reported that the hunt for a new custodian is going to be the top priority for Chris Coleman and his team in the upcoming winter transfer window. The Black Cats have conceded a mammoth 35 goals in just 18 games, averaging at almost 2 goals conceded per game. Of the two senior keepers, neither Jason Steele nor Robbin Ruiter have been strong enough at the back and that has been the root cause to the defensive misery this season for Sunderland.
The gulf in class looks even bigger at the back, especially because last time out, they had Jordan Pickford who was by far the best player in the team and made Sunderland’s relegation look like a respectable demise rather than an open humiliation with some heroic saves.
The most likely replacement is going to be Coleman’s number one for Wales Wayne Hennessey. The Welsh international has lost his place at Crystal Palace behind Julian Speroni and a chance to reconnect with his ex-international boss will be tempting for all parties involved. He would certainly be an improvement on Sunderland’s current woeful state.
