A harrowing day at the office for Sunderland. Another one. Talk of Europe, of a place among the gilded elite of the Barclays Premier League, now feels like a cruel joke on a club for whom long and dispiriting sequences without a victory are becoming as much a defining characteristic as red-and-white stripes. Fourteen games last season; seven this time. And counting.
Six defeats in that miserable spell have led Steve Bruce’s team to slide to twelfth. There have been mitigating factors, from the quality of their opponents — Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Manchester City among them — to youth and a corrosive list of injuries, but a campaign that offered lustre is veering towards peril.
They are six points above the bottom three, a buffer that in most circumstances would be regarded as comfortable, yet the context is concerning. Four games have elapsed since they last scored and their total of 37 goals in 34 matches in all competitions is the lowest of any side presently inhabiting the division.
Statistics can be misleading but, on this occasion, they tell a wider truth. Porous defending proved their undoing at the City of Manchester Stadium, yet they no longer have a get-out clause. Darren Bent’s departure to Aston Villa three months ago robbed them of a player who accounted for 50 per cent of their goals last season.
It is the kind of run that heaps discomfort on managers, yet Bruce works for solid and reflective employers. “There’s give and take on both sides,” Niall Quinn, the Sunderland chairman, said last week. “[Bruce] understands that because I’m a football person, there’s no kneejerk reaction ... It would have to be a really long sustained period when the dogs in the street would know that he wasn’t the right man.”
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There is no howling yet; far from it. But Sunderland are a club whose default setting for much of their recent existence has been consistent — if things can go wrong, they will. It would be devastating if they lapsed into mundanity. “Keep the Faith”, a banner inside the ground read and it is a mantra. Supporters have often had nothing else.
The good news is that their final seven fixtures are relatively gentle; West Bromwich Albion, Birmingham City, Wigan Athletic, Fulham, Bolton Wanderers, Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Ham United. Although given that most of those sides are grappling for safety, gentle is a relative concept. It is true that they have had little fortune.
Titus Bramble, a mainstay of the defence, has succumbed to a cartilage problem and his absence could be lengthy. Fraizer Campbell, who was on the verge of returning, twisted a knee in training. Phil Bardsley played only after he had an injection in a knee.
“We’ve got to get back that resilience and what made us look like a good team,” Bruce said. A response is needed. It is time to repay that faith.