I think he's trying to convince himself that being in league 1 for another season is better than being in the Prem.
Being a Sunderland fan I can back him up and honestly say that us being in the Premier League was ****ing terrible!
I can confirm that being in the PL can be a pretty dispiriting experience for at least 66% of the teams in it. And if you do manage to assemble a half decent side, Liverpool tries to buy it, and everyone says Klopp is a genius
At least now, when we play well, we tend to win. In the Premier League, when we very occasionally played well, we got beat. The hurt just turned to boredom. My passion for football has diminished over the past decade, for many reasons, and one of those might have something to do with our prolonged, by our standards, stay in the Premier League. As far as Im concerned Sunderland being in the Premier League was comparable to me being a millionaire but suffering terribly with my health. Now I've lost all my money but I feel so much healthier. The irony now is the plan is for me to try and get all my money back and feel ****ing awful again.