In 1992. Is this the best/most entertaining season ever? Not since the great Mag implosion of 96 has there been anything like it. Throwing a 12 point lead away Leicester with a budget of a few pints and a pack of tabs, making a mockery of the mega spenders. Reigning champions with all their superstars, taking hissy fits and ousting a great manager. West Ham pushing for Europe. Bournemouth beating both Chelsea and Utd within a week. Everyone beating everyone. Arsenal fans calling for Wengers head and SAFC keeping the entertainment going till the very end and might relegate the mags. Oh what a season. The greatest ever?
Yes certainly entertaining, but I would rather be entertained further up the table. But it was good to see some of the invincibles get off to a very slow start...Manu, Chelski and Arsenal.
It's certainly not dull being a Sunderland fan, but it's the sort of excitement that we could really do without. The "Great Escapes" are excellent, but if we keep getting in these situations it will bite us in the arse one time. I'd be quite happy next season with just getting to 40 points with a few games still to go, but Leicester, Southampton, and West Ham have shown this year that for teams outside the big 6 it doesn't just have to be about mid table mediocrity or a relegation fight. Let's hope that we can get a bit more of that sort of excitement.
All three teams mentioned have had the benefit of stability over the past few years, something alien to us. But you just wait.......................
Just to quantify, the stability of the same manager, players who have blended in and so forth. Leics played well through the promotion season, did well the first half of last season without winning, sign one player and the rest is history. There is no comparison to our predicaments over the past three seasons.
Bloody hell you are hard work. Settled teams that play a certain way, new manager has little to change, so can assess without pressure. We got off to a horrendous start despite some so called raltively easy fixtures, probably caused by DA no fully understanding EPL football, so Sam had a team to shore up and then change.
All three of those teams have been a lower division more recently than us, and two of them have been in League 1. Arguably, that represents less stability over the longer term. What it suggests to me is that the hierachies at those clubs have learnt from their mistakes whereas the people making the decisions at our club haven't learnt from their's.
