Its no secret Sunderland have had a poor start compared to the expectations when Bruce brought in no fewer than 10 players. However looking at the fixtures it seems after this Saturday there are points to be taken both home and away Man Utd v Sunderland, Tough Sunderland v Fulham, Should win at home Sunderland v Wigan, Should win at home Wolverhampton v Sunderland, Wolves look poor at home - Point Sunderland v Blackburn, Should win at home Tottenham v Sunderland, Tough QPR v Sunderland, Promoted team should get a point at least Sunderland v Everton, Should take a point at least If Sunderland cant take 12 points from these games then there could be trouble ahead.
I think that the Blackburn game could be the key one. If by then we have done well, that means winning the winnable games thaen the Blackburn game will set up Bruce in the transfer window. If we have had poor results then Blackburn could be Bruces last stand. Big month ahead for everyone.
There are teams there where you would expect the game to be easier, but the fact is that all those teams are capable of turning up on the day (often as underdogs) and putting up more of a fight than anyone expected, so if you guys got less than 12 points, then I don't think it would be so shocking. We were expecting of results against some of those teams (Wolves and Wigan inparticular), but both of those matches were tougher than we expected, and both of those games relied on grinding out the result (and even a bit of luck here and there) to get the win. I think it was down to our players underestimating the side, so whilst you may expect wins from these games, just hope that your players don't expect them either like ours did.
Man Utd v Sunderland = nul points Sunderland v Fulham = 3 points Sunderland v Wigan = 3 points Wolverhampton v Sunderland = 1 point Sunderland v Blackburn = 3 points Tottenham v Sunderland = nul points QPR v Sunderland = 1 point Sunderland v Everton = 1 point 12 points from me, depending on Bruce's famously erratic tactics.
