ITHICS Fanzine: Sunderland have started the season well - let’s hope lessons have been learnt!

Five games in and we sit in fourth place, equal with four other teams on 11 points.

This is a much better than two games in when we had drawn our first two and the sense of déjà vu all over again was palpable. For the team which had narrowly won its battle to avoid promotion last season, due to the surrender of points via 19 draws (15 of them being 1-1), led many to think the new season was starting as the previous one had ended.

Fast forward three games and three wins have been added off the back of a televised 2-1 win against last season’s nemesis, Portsmouth. We still haven’t been able to keep a clean sheet, but second-half fightbacks show that the team has belief and a never-say-die attitude. When going a goal up we still seem susceptible to sitting back and inviting opponents to come at us.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images

The victory over AFC Wimbledon was comprehensive and, according to the welcome reintroduction of the BBC Newcastle Sunderland highlights podcast, Gary Bennett actually thought we had played well and should have won more convincingly.

The next few fixtures look enticing. Especially as we can fill our boots against Bolton on 21st September, because Ipswich are only top because of the five goals they were allowed to score at the Lancashire club.

We actually started last season in slightly better fashion, winning four and drawing one, but it is to be hoped that the lessons from last season’s mid-season stutter have been learnt.

There is no Josh Maja to jump ship leaving us without a goal scorer. This season the goals have been mostly shared between a rejuvenated Lyndon Gooch and Chris Maguire - Maguire’s goal-scoring tally is already only two behind last season’s total.

Charlie Wyke, Aiden McGeady and Jordan Willis have each weighed in with one to spread the goal-scoring load across the team.

It seems we are steadily digging ourselves in for a solid season, which after the tumult of the end to last season can only be welcome.