Quick Kicks: SAFC 0-1 Forest: Where on earth do Sunderland go from here?!

Positives

McManaman looks good and will be an asset when fit. Williams was fantastic. Oviedo is a marked improvement on the hapless Galloway. Adam Matthews was very decent.

And that’s where it ends.

Not signing a decent striker is hurting us

If Lewis Grabban going down injured wasn’t enough to make you wince then watching him be replaced by James Vaughan certainly will have sent a shiver down your spine.

Let’s face it - not signing a decent forward to replace Jermain Defoe is the biggest mistake we made during the transfer window and we’ll continue to be reminded of this each and every time that Vaughan completes a game having not scored a goal.

We could have played for another ninety minutes last night and we still wouldn’t have scored. Even with the fantastic deliveries from out wide provided by McManaman and Oviedo, we never looked capable - and that is a massive, massive concern.

People are staying away for a good reason

Whilst the official attendance was announced as around 26,000 it was quite clear that there was nowhere near that amount of people in the ground - perhaps suggesting that thousands of paying season card holders simply stayed away because they couldn’t be bothered.

And who can blame them? We haven’t won a league match at the Stadium of Light since last year. Crystal Palace have had four managers since we last won a home game, for f**k sake.

And the crowds will only continue to dwindle. Watching on as your team lose week after week is not nice and eventually people will just get sick and will stop going, it’s as simple as that.

Gutted for Browning

You have to feel sorry for Tyias Browning. He’d had a fantastic game until his error led to Forest scoring and that’ll undoubtedly play on his mind over the coming days.

Of the two lads we got on loan in the summer from Everton he’s definitely the better and I’ve got some hope at least that he can prove to be a decent acquisition, but maybe it’s time to give him a break from the side once Lamine Kone is back fit. He’s played constantly since arriving here and maybe a spell out will help him to re-align himself so that when he gets back in the side he can start to show some consistency.

What now?

I have no idea where we go from here. Winning on Saturday would help, of course, but who can honestly say with any conviction that they think we’re capable of mustering up the type of performance that will see us overcome Hull this weekend?

We’ve just got to cross our fingers and hope we manage to get a result over the line but in all honesty I don’t see it. That performance last night was us trying our very best and we still looked incapable of scoring goals.