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One hopelessly optimistic sports writer opined in August that Paolo Di Canio’s Sunderland were going to be the surprise overachieving team in the 2013/14 season (it was me). I wrote specifically that “Di Canio should have enough to see the Black Cats rise significantly from last season’s precariously low perch of 17th place.” Boy was I wrong.
The signs looked good early on; following on from the back end of last season Di Canio seemed to have brought new purpose to a Sunderland team in desperate need of a new direction. The Black Cats showed real quality on their pre-season tour of Asia, holding their own with impressive performances against Tottenham and Arsenal.
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Unfortunately, that pre-season tour was the highlight of Di Canio’s reign. Sunderland began the season drastically, losing four of their first five premier games including discouraging losses to relegation contenders Fulham, Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion.
With only one pitiful point in the premier league after the first two months, it wasn’t all that surprising to see the Sunderland brass lose patience with the struggling Di Canio. The Italian clearly didn’t have the pulse of his team, failing to even stay competitive in games despite all the encouragement of the summer months. He was dismissed on 22nd September 2013.
A new Era
With Di Canio gone, it was going to take somebody with a strong resolve and tactical intelligence to dig the Black Cats out from the foot of the EPL table. The side looked limp, scoring only five times in their first eight fixtures whilst failing to keep even a single clean sheet.
Enter Gus Poyet.
New manager Gus Poyet introduces himself to the Sunderland faithful, October 2013
To begin with, Sunderland fans didn’t really see a difference on the field between Di Canio’s team and Poyet’s. In his first game in charge, the Uruguayan got off to almost the worst start imaginable; a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Swansea City. Even worse, the defeat came courtesy of 4 goals in a disappointing second half performance, something that had become commonplace during Di Canio’s reign.
In football, however, fortunes can change very quickly. Martin O’Neil used to tell his Celtic team that even the best managers are only three or four games away from the sack. Well the logic works both ways; in the fickle world of football, a manager is only ever one great game away from acceptance. Fortunately for Poyet, that game happened to come in the very next fixture.
The best way to win over an unsure fan base is by beating their closest rivals. Gus Poyet knew that, and so he must have been thrilled when, in his second game in charge, his Sunderland side took down local rivals Newcastle United by a score of 2-1. The uplifting victory, courtesy of a late strike by Fabio Borini, would be the foundation upon which the new manager would begin to rebuild his side’s quickly fading season.
The great turnaround
Poyet wasted no time stamping his mark on the Sunderland team. His players responded well, and what has followed has been the most miraculous turnaround in the EPL this season. Before Poyet’s appointment, Sunderland had lost seven of eight EPL games. However, in the months that followed the table bottom dwellers looked like a completely different team.
The headlines of the turnaround are impressive. They haven’t lost an away fixture in the EPL since a 2-0 loss at Stoke on 22nd November (a run of six games), and stand in 5th place on the premier league club form guide.
Gus Poyet called Sunderland’s 3-0 victory over Newcastle United at St James’s Park “One of the best days I have had in football, as a manager, for sure”
Individual victories have been impressive. The team beat Manchester City 1-0 at home in November, a result made all the more impressive by the fact that it came in a month where Man City scored 7, 6, 5, and 4 goals in their other four fixtures.
An even more significant scalp from the fans perspective was rival Newcastle Utd. After claiming victory in his second game in charge against the North East enemy back in October, Poyet marched his team into St James’s Park and led them to a 3-0 triumph. This gave Sunderland a third consecutive Tyne and Wear derby win over Newcastle for the first time since 1923.
January was a particularly successful month for the Black Cat’s. After losing the New Year’s Day clash at Aston Villa, Poyet’s men ripped off five wins, one draw, and a 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford which saw them progress to the League Cup final on penalties.
On their way to the League Cup final, Sunderland saw off the challenges of Southampton and Chelsea before taking down the reigning EPL champions over two legs. They also have an opportunity for success in the FA Cup, facing Southampton next week after previously defeating Kidderminster and Carlisle Utd.
Even in losses, such as their first home loss under the Poyet era (a 4-3 nail-biter at the hands of Chelsea), Sunderland have been far more impressive and gritty than their efforts under the previous regime. This is truly a different team than the one that conducted the first two months of the season, and Gus Poyet is the most logical reason for that transformation.
January Dealer
The new manager has seen his share of victories off the field too. Primarily, Poyet resisted temptation in the January transfer window to sell midfielder Lee Cattermole to Stoke City for a hefty £5 million despite the offered fee being more than generous.
Poyet understood, though, that keeping Cattermole was worth more than £5 million. This is not because of Cattermole’s abilities on the pitch, which may be replaced by new signing Liam Bridcutt, but because he understood the topography of his team.
Players like Cattermole had been and continue to be strong contributors to the transformed team spirit, and losing his influence in the dressing room might have a negative effect on the squad. What’s more, selling to Stoke would be gifting a crucial player to a relegation rival.
Poyet added to the team this past window with five new players, addressing the most pressing deficiencies in the squad. A left-back was at the very top of Poyet’s list and, in Marcos Alonso, the Sunderland boss looks to have found a short term solution to the problem area. Meanwhile, Argentinian trickster Scocco will look to add a flash of creativity to a team starved of goal scoring chances.
Outgoing transfers have also been a success for the new gaffer. Two of Paolo Di Canio’s failed signings, David Moberg Karlsson and Modibo Diakite, were both shown the door via the loan market, while David Vaughan finalised his exit from the Stadium of Light after joining Nottingham Forest until the end of the season. Encouragingly for Sunderland fans, he is washing away the past and carving a new future for the North East club.
Getting the best out of his players
Nobody could have expected what Poyet has been able to do with this Sunderland squad. Taking over in October, and with a number of new players having arrived in the summer, Poyet took the job with one hand tied behind his back. He had to take players gathered by a previous regime and mould them into the team he wanted them to become.
Sunderland’s Adam Johnson (#11) has really shone in Gus Poyet’s system, accounting for 6 goals and 2 assists in 2014
Because of that, a quick fix would have been an unrealistic expectation. Sunderland fans knew that, and were bracing themselves for a tough transition period that almost always comes with a mid-season coaching change. Poyet’s brilliance, then, has been in avoiding that uneasy transition stage. He has taken this group of players and figured them out quickly, doing what he needs to do to get the best out of them.
Adam Johnson has flourished under his tutelage, picking up the January player of the month award and exciting England fans nationwide with the FIFA World Cup around the corner. The Middlesbrough academy graduate has had a hand in eight goals in his last four Premier League appearances, more than any other EPL player in 2014.
Phil Bardsley, who has become a key cog in Sunderland’s defensive efforts, was training in the reserves under Di Canio. Ki, the on-loan midfielder from Swansea, stands just behind Johnson as one of the most on-form players in the premier league. He has solved the riddle of his team, figuring out the formula for success that Paulo Di Canio never could.
Looking forward, and over the shoulder
The opportunity is there now for Poyet to keep the momentum going. Sunderland find themselves in 14th place ahead of this weekend’s fixture at home to Hull. They have one of the most impressive runs of form in the country and Poyet himself has now had the January transfer window to shape his squad the way he wants.
Standing only two points above the relegation zone, the Black Cats are by no means out of the woods. However, given the side’s healthy position and swelling confidence, they would be forgiven for looking ahead instead of over their shoulder in the table from now on.
Poyet himself, however, has not let the recent success distort the team’s ultimate goal of survival.
The Uruguayan told the Daily Star before a recent 2-2 draw with Southampton that “I was trying to think of how much of the job we’ve done so far and I would say maybe half. We were far away from everybody not so long ago and being written off completely but now we are there in the mix.
So that means the job is half done but the other half is going to be just as difficult as the first. We have proved we can do it and if we can maintain our recent level on Saturday, then we are going to be in a great position to stay in the Premier League.”
A Manager of the Year candidate
When Poyet succeeded Di Canio in October, the Black Cats were in danger of being cast adrift. Not only have they closed the gap on those teams above them; they have actually leap-frogged them. Poyet has dragged his team out of the relegation zone and into the League Cup final using nothing but what he was handed by Di Canio when he walked into the building in October.
What he has done is nothing short of remarkable. Roberto Martinez has impressed at Everton (although the heavy defeat at Anfield has left some questioning his pedigree) and whoever wins the title will have navigated a gruelling and competitive race.
There will no doubt be plenty of candidates come season’s end, but if Gus Poyet’s efforts translate to Sunderland’s survival this season, and perhaps a trophy in the cabinet case, there will not be a more suitable candidate for the Barclay’s Manager of the Year award.
