Gus Poyet is the man given the responsibility to drag Sunderland out of relegation zone. The former Brighton & Hove Albion manager was named as Paolo Di Canio’s successor by signing a two-year deal last week. Like Di Canio, Poyet has no previous managerial experience at Premier League level but has impressed in recent years with Brighton, making a name for himself as a manager who likes to have his teams playing effective possession football. It is possible that De Fanti has appointed Poyet due to the high number of foreign nationalities representing Sunderland (given the summer’s transfers). But will Poyet be able to re-shuffle the team after the Italian’s brief regime? One thing is for certain, he has inherited a team that has scored only five goals and conceded sixteen; a team of players that Di Canio fought to sign this summer due to the former squad displaying signs of gross unprofessional-ism by turning up late for team meetings and being unfit for the game of football.
Under the caretaker manager, Kevin Ball, Sunderland showed some promise, but still they stand last at the bottom of the table. Ball fielded his last team with a 4-5-1Â formation featuring Craig Gardner, Lee Cattermole and Sung-Yueng Ki as central midfielders while Adam Johnson and Emanuele Giaccherini played out wide on the left and on the right flank respectively.
SUNDERLAND’S 4-5-1 FORMATION
The midfield trio worked well for Kevin Ball, with only Cattermole’s passing accuracy being well under the 80% mark; while both Gardner (79%) and Ki (94%) boasted much better passing accuracies. It seems to be the most logical formation under the conditions of the existing Sunderland’s squad.
Could it be that Di Canio’s refusal to make the switch to 4-5-1 contributed to seal his fate? Sunderland seem to be best suited to play with a five-man midfield and the change could help a porous defence. The problem is on the offensive stage with the team not able to make a quick transition to play on the opposite half of the pitch. The Black Cats are loaded with good ball carriers (despite a 43.04 % of ball retention average), they are however, short of box-to-box midfielders to support the central striker. It could be argued that Gardner’s four shots on target suggest that he could be the man to step forward. The lack of forward options however has led to the fact that all the central midfielders have a forward passing accuracy of under fifty percent and the fact that Sebastian Larsson is the only player with more than thirty final third entries.
One solution to increase midfield attacking support could be to ask either Johnson and Giaccherini to drift more inside to help the lone forward (rather than stay out wide), moving the full-backs up to provide width in the offensive stage.
ONE SOLUTION TO SUNDERLAND’S PROBLEMS
Playing on counter-attack could be another solution but the defence is weak and the midfielders aren’t strong ball winners – this is evident in the statistics, as no player has made more than 10 total clearances. Under a new regime, players sidelined under Di Canio could flourish and get a second chance to contribute, players like the big defender Modibo Diakité and midfielder Cabral still could contribute to the cause. It’ll be interesting also to see if Poyet will be able to revive Fabio Borini back to the form he demonstrated at Swansea and then Roma (on loan from Parma, pre-Liverpool). Since Borini’s arrival, the former Liverpool forward wasn’t able to produce the form that Sunderland fans had hoped he would. He has made just two unimpressive appearances against Arsenal and WBA, making very few total shots. There is the possibility that the current wide midfielder Giaccherini could be moved into a more central role, in the way to have a central midfielder able to push up helping Jozy Altidore up front (with Borini being moved out into a wider area as an inside forward).
A SECOND SOLUTION TO SUNDERLAND’S PROBLEMS
There are a lot decisions to be made by Poyet and he will have the break to work with the remaining players with no international duties. The Uruguayan will have to find the starting XI to face Swansea City on his first game in charge as Sunderland’s new manager and will need of a good start to silence the doubts that he may not be the right man for the job.
