Sunderland were put in a tough situation when their manager Sam Allardyce was appointed as the England manager and he resigned from the club forcing them to look for a replacement pretty quickly before the start of the season. The club hierarchy did appoint David Moyes as the new boss but the managerial fiasco hampered their transfer strategy.
When Moyes was appointed, he made his intentions clear about the things he needed to fix which was getting the team out of the relegation battle, something that has now become an inevitable occurrence season after season. When the feeling of change and optimism that comes with the appointment of a new manager settled down, the Black Cats were hit hard by the reality once again as their new manager very rightly addressed the fan base to warn them of expecting any miracle about their club escaping their problems within a few months.
Unable to attract players and with having a time frame much smaller than the others owing to the change of managers, Sunderland managed to get 9 players in with some signings not being exciting at all. The signings included 34-year old Steven Pienaar and 19-year old central defender Paddy Mc Nair which are not ideal for a team trying to get away from the relegation battle. However, the Stadium of Light saw players with a bit of experience in Papy Djilobodji, Javier Manquillo (despite being 22-yrs old) join the squad.
After catching the eye with Lorient in the French Ligue 1, Didier N’dong was signed for the club record fee of £13.6m. The Manchester United prodigy who excelled under Moyes at Old Trafford, Adnan Januzaj was also signed by the club alongside Jason Denayer on loan from Manchester City and Mika from Boavista.
The Premier League table does make the picture clear for Sunderland who are rock bottom with just 5 points from their 11 games. Things would have been much worse if not for the unexpected away win last weekend at Bournemouth. Defender Papy Djilobodji has been decent in patches just like their record signing N’dong and that’s about it from the signings recruited in the summer. Having scored the lowest number of goals and conceding the most in the division tells us how poor it has really been at the North East club of England.
The squad is still stretched in certain positions and is in dire need of quality reinforcements in the winter if they are to have the slightest chance of surviving the drop. Free agent Victor Anichebe has provided the support for Jermaine Defoe up front in the two games he has played and also contributed heavily in their last game to earn the club their first win of the season.
The fans would certainly be hoping now that the team builds on the momentum but with the international break this week it can be safely said that they are not getting the help they need to do the things properly.
