|
Sunderland
With it’s passionate support it’s a mystery why
Sunderland has not, as a club or team, become
an established Premiership outfit but in it’s attempts to do so, after
a highest finish of seventh
for two consecutive seasons, 1999–2000 and 2000–01, excessive
expenditure on players, who
didn’t produce, saw the club spiral into Division One.
It all started so well in the first campaign when
five points in an unbeaten three-game start
saw Sunderland in sixth place by September 1996 but two months later
they had slipped to
17th. Goals were a continual problem as just nine were scored in the
first 13 games, and two
of those were penalties and four goals came against Nottingham Forest in
one game. Form was
erratic as the team struggled to climb to 11th by the New Year.
1997 was no kinder and after a Tony Adams own goal
gifted them victory over Arsenal six
games followed without victory until 15th placed Sunderland scored all
three goals in a shock
2–1 win over leaders Manchester United. The Black Cats picked up just
eight more points that
campaign and slipped into Division One. Craig Russell, top scorer with
four League goals,
summed up the season.
Sunderland took two seasons to return to the
Premiership but after they opened with a
thrashing at Chelsea there was only one more defeat before late
November, and only an 89th
minute West Ham equaliser in October stopped the team topping the table.
After a 2–1
reverse at Leeds, with Kevin Phillips scoring freely, the side went 10
games unbeaten and they
went to Anfield, in third place. Sunderland bounced back from
Liverpool’s defeat with three
successive victories before the decisive result of the season, a heavy
defeat at Everton,
knocked The Black Cats out of their stride and there were only five more
wins, in the second
half of the season, three coming in succession as March turned to April
which left them
seventh where they remained for the rest of the campaign. Failure to
qualify for Europe was
offset by Kevin Phillips’ 30 Premiership goals earning him the Carling
Player of the Year award.
After beating Arsenal, on the opening day of the
following season, one point from the next 12
left Sunderland in the relegation zone but a six-game unbeaten run saw
them climb to ninth.
Following a blip the team went fifth with victory over Middlesbrough.
After losing to Leeds four
wins in five games took Sunderland second but that was as good as it got
and the team
dropped steadily winning just three games in the last 15 to replicate
the previous season’s
seventh place finish.
Sunderland’s penultimate season was punctuated by
inconsistency, individually and
collectively. With Niall Quinn playing his last season before retiring
and Kevin Phillips only
managing 11 goals by spring the team was floating just above the
relegation zone and 2002
never saw more than two consecutive wins as the team survived by just
four points.
Peter Reid was sacked and the appointment of
managerial ‘dream team’ of Howard Wilkinson
and Steve Cotterill turned into a nightmare as the team went into
free-fall. By March a run of
five consecutive defeats saw the management sacked and Sunderland
bottom. Five defeats
became a Premier League record of 15 that was to come within one game of
Darwen’s
104-year-old record worst of 18 consecutive reverses. New manager Mick
McCarthy couldn’t
stop the decline and Sunderland went down with the lowest-ever
Premiership low of just four
wins from a 38 game season.
Managers
Peter Reid
1995–2002
Howard Wilkinson
2002–2003
Mick McCarthy
2003– |
