:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/51381655/611741342.0.jpg)
Here's your weekly dose of Davey.
I’m disappointed that we’ve left with nothing from the game. I didn’t think we played as badly as the half time result suggested.
There were some spells of good play, and I told the players that at half time. But we made mistakes for their first goal; our defending was poor.
After that we hung in and we kept at it, but again further mistakes led to their second. Jordan [Pickford] made a great save from the corner and then they had a shot from the edge of the box and scored. We should have done better.
Just before their second I didn’t think we’d done that badly, I’d hoped to go in at half time at 1-0 and then come back out and build on the positive spells we had been having.
We did better in the second half. We didn’t concede any goals and Jermain [Defoe] almost scored when he hit the post. There was some good stuff, but we just didn’t take our opportunities.
The injuries are part of football, you have to get on; our team is very inexperienced at the minute and losing Patrick [van Aanholt] midway through the game didn’t help, but nevertheless we stuck at it.
The fans were brilliant today; you could hear them throughout the game. As long as they’re a part of this club it’ll always be great.
We're eight games into the season and I'm still sat wondering just what our plan actually is. Is it to beat Derby's lowest points total? Are we just hoping that there are three other teams that are as bad as we are? I dunno. I can't work it out.
A late injury to Lamine Kone in the build up to the game didn't help but I'm not even sure his inclusion would have made that much of a difference. He's been awful for most of this season, so whether he would have improved the team's performance is tough to say. I doubt it, not based on his recent form anyhow.
Our response to an encouraging end to the West Brom game was to... well, take none of the momentum forward in to this one. Instead of going at Stoke, a team with a statistically worse defence than ours, we failed to register a single shot on target from open play and struggled through the ninety minutes in the same fashion as we have seen in almost every game this season.
Moyes' empty words aren't telling us the full story.
The club's very obvious attempt at trying to gain some positive PR from holding an open training session last week with David Moyes all happy and cheery shouldn't fool anyone - this clearly isn't a happy camp.
The players aren't getting along on the pitch and it's clear to see. The better members of our team are visibly frustrated by the inconsistency of the weaker ones and having to constantly change the side due to injuries means that there is a distinct lack of continuity, removing the ability for us to actually create a sense of stability. Nothing is going our way at the moment and, worryingly, it doesn't appear to be getting any better.
It's somewhat troubling that David Moyes said that he felt that we played well at times in the game. Did we really? I mean, it's nice that Jermain Defoe was able to hit the post but does it honestly matter when you are 2-0 down having defended appallingly in the build for both goals, a weakness we show time and time again, one that we don't appear to be addressing? If 'there was some good stuff' as Moyes says in the second half then I certainly didn't see it.
Nothing I've seen from any of the games he's been in charge of have given me any hope that we have a style or pattern that can win us football matches in the Premier League. We don't keep the ball well enough to dominate over long periods. We don't create enough chances because of this, and we don't defend in the manner that an aspiring mid-table side should be able to. The only thing that has been consistent about Sunderland's style of play since the season started is that we consistently look like we haven't got a clue what we are doing.
The worst part of all of this is that nobody seems to have the answer for how we can turn the corner and ride through this tough patch. By the time we get key players back fit and playing, it might be too late for us to build confidence and momentum and start picking up results.
I'm not saying that we should be considering getting rid of David Moyes, but if we lose again next week at West Ham it will be interesting to see if Ellis Short cracks and sacks his manager before its too late - something that usually does at this stage of the relationship.
