Phil Smith reflects on an infamous day in Sunderland’s recent history
In a new series for Sunderland Echo subscribers, Phil Smith is delving into is notebook to recall some of the more dramatic days covering the club. In this first instalment, he reflects on a 6-0 defeat to Bolton Wanderers that took place four years ago this week. One of the club’s worst defeats of modern times, it would nevertheless pave the way for promotion at Wembley just months later...
It's become an iconic (or maybe infamous would be a better word?) Sunderland image.
Shoulders are slumped in a despairing away end as the scoreboard behind them reads: 87 minutes, Bolton Wanderers 6-0 Sunderland. Incredible as it is to say, that defeat was somehow just four years ago this week. After nine years on the road, some games blur into each other and yet there are some in which every detail remains vivid. This was one of those days, a performance so shambolic that it is no stretch to say it changed the course of Sunderland history. Thankfully for the better, though things would actually get worse to begin with. The defeats against Doncaster Rovers and Cheltenham Town plumbed new depths in their own ways, and will need a column of their own to do justice one day.
There's always a moment of tension before a post-match press conference begins after a game like this, where you're carefully trying to read the body language of the manager to get a sense of what is about to unfold. That tension was always accentuated on the road in League One, where the interview would be held in a cramped huddle rather than a plush media suite. Lee Johnson looked defeated, rather than irate. His first response was to candidly admit that he didn't have the answers, which revealed much in itself. From there, his departure felt not far off inevitable.
History has perhaps been a little unkind to Johnson, in no small part because of the manner of this last game in because it was one of a string of disastrous away days during this campaign. That Johnson would often lapse into the kind of management speak that Sunderland supporters struggle with didn't help his case, but there was much good work done in his tenure. All head coaches talk about being brave and using academy players, but few actually have the guts to go ahead and do it. Particularly not at a club like Sunderland, where any defeat necessarily invites a wave of criticism and debate. While the summer transfer window of 2020 has rightly gone down in history as one of Sunderland's best, a fundamental reset that changed the club's trajectory, it's easy to forget they came into the start of that campaign short in key positions. Johnson held his nerve, publicly backing his young players and being rewarded with a brilliant opening-day win over Wigan Athletic that got the club moving. Many in his position would have tried to use having to play Dan Neil at left back as an excuse-in-waiting; Johnson did not. There was much about his spell in charge that was admirable and strange as it might seem to say, his legacy was better than many others who have passed through the dugout over the last couple of decades.
This defeat was nevertheless the jolt that Sunderland needed. They were outplayed in this game by a decent Bolton Wanderers side but what was most striking about this game was the extent to which they were outfought and overrun. Physically it was a spectacular mismatch, and actually reminds me a little in retrospect of the 3-0 drubbing away at Coventry City last season. It was in the aftermath of that defeat that Régis Le Bris's extreme rotation plan ahead of the play-offs was devised, and it was clear that was a defeat that required change. Not just in the dugout, but across the board. Sunderland were a good side capable of very good performances, but this defeat suggested they did not have the consistency to go up automatically and their chances of making it through the away leg of a play-off semi final looked slim indeed. Alex Neil would go on to do a sensational job in the months that followed, but he benefited from the sobering nature of this defeat. He came in with carte blanche to overhaul the side, which would very quickly start to lean on experience rather than youth. It's interesting now to note how often Sunderland's best periods under the current regime have so often followed the worst, as if it's in difficult times that they are best able to understand and strike the balance between sticking to their principles but ensuring the team has the level of steel and experience required to succeed.
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Though I've heard the story told a million times, I still chuckle at the story of Charlie Hurley declaring progress after his second appearance for the club ended in a 6-0 defeat (his debut had ended 7-0). Sometimes even on the gloomiest days, there are positives to be taken. So I wonder if there can ever have been a Sunderland game in which a result so calamitous coincided with the debut of two players who would go on to make such an overwhelmingly positive impact? In my player ratings from that day, there was recognition of a 'lively' debut from Jack Clarke, and some 'clever' play from Patrick Roberts, whose introduction to the game had very briefly threatened a revival before things unraveled further still. Sunderland looked broken in the aftermath of this defeat, and yet the foundations were in place for a spectacular 18 months to follow. It truly is a funny old game.
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