Nine points separate the play-offs and the relegation zone. It is safe to assume that with 11 games remaining, Sunderland’s season has reached a tipping point ahead of tomorrow night’s home encounter against league leaders Leicester City.
The issue leading into the game, however, is that the club’s trajectory over the last month has been downhill. The final two games of the Michael Beale era ended in defeat, prompting the departure of easily the most unpopular Black Cats manager in recent memory, but matters have not improved under his interim successor, Mike Dodds, who has also lost the first two games of his reign.
Throw in the ongoing anger at off-field events at the Stadium of Light, whether relating to the controversial decision to dismiss Tony Mowbray, the farcical build-up to the derby defeat to Newcastle or the increasingly widespread frustrations at Kristjaan Speakmans’s ‘project’ and the club’s signing policy, and you have all the makings of a toxic atmosphere that has the potential to get even worse.
There are a host of mitigating factors, particularly when it comes to Dodds’ role in the unfolding mess, but tomorrow’s game has the feel of an occasion that could do much to determine the prevailing mood on Wearside for the rest of the season.
“You’ve had some pinch points over the last few months, where one thing leads after another and after another,” admitted Dodds, whose fire-fighting role has looked more and more difficult with every week he has spent in his current post. “The only thing we can do, internally, as players and within the dressing room, is win games of football.
“If we win football games, those other issues that are outside my control become far less pressing. They’re not going away, we’re well aware of that, but we’ve got to do our part to aid the football club, both me and the players.
“We’re at a crossroads in terms of results, and we’re well conscious of that. We have to do our part as players and coaches to change that, and the way we accomplish that is by winning football games.”
Can Sunderland get back to winning ways against the league leaders? Leicester have looked surprisingly shaky in the last three weeks, losing three games in a row against Middlesbrough, Leeds and QPR, but they retain a three-point advantage at the top of the table and boast a squad that continues to be the envy of just about every other team in the league.
Sunderland, on the other hand, is depleted of confidence and has lost their top scorers and talisman. Nonetheless, Dodds argues that most of the noise that has accumulated in recent months is rather easy to ignore. Within the confines of the dressing room, the 37-year-old insists that a sense of optimism and belief remains.
“Listen, I’m not suggesting that the players are skipping down the corridors,” he remarked. But I will say that they have a tremendous focus and intensity, which has surprised me because I expected to have to pluck one or two off the floor.
“They seem to be really focused and clear about what we’re attempting to accomplish. The current situation is what it is. We lost perhaps one of the league’s finest defenders, as well as someone who contributes significantly to our goal total, and that won’t be fixed after one game.
“We’re not going to be able to address that in one game; we’ll have to keep working on it. But I absolutely understand the fans’ point of view.
Sunderland (likely 4-2-3-1): Patterson; Hume, O’Nien, Ballard, Hjelde; Neil, Ekwah; Ba, Bellingham, Styles; Hemir.
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