Dick Advocaat conceded there is something wrong with his Sunderland side after their 3-1 home surrender to promoted Norwich City and has summoned the team to a crisis meeting on Sunday morning.
Coming a week after a 4-2 defeat at Leicester City, this most comprehensive reverse represented quite a setback for the former Holland coach, who rescued Sunderland from relegation from the Premier League in the spring.
At the end of an afternoon of wholesale booing, during which supporters streamed for the exits early in the second half, he made his discontent plain. “Even this squad must be good enough to get a better result against Norwich,” said a manager anxious to see Sunderland’s owner, Ellis Short, invest in new players between now and the transfer window’s closure.
“There is something wrong, that’s quite simple. I have an idea about it, but tomorrow we will have a meeting and they can talk and I will talk
“What was so wrong was I saw players – and I don’t want to mention names, it was the whole team, with the exception of one or two players – and they did things that I don’t expect from a player at this level. I have to know why that can happen because it’s really strange for me. You can play badly, but not even knowing what to do is even worse. I’m really shocked.”
If Advocaat, who turns 68 next month, may be regretting his decision not to retire after all in June, Norwich’s Alex Neil was delighted with the efforts of his players as they extended their record of not having lost an away game since his appointment in January.
“The performance and the result showed that we are more than capable of holding our own at this level,” said the 34-year-old.
“Some teams go away from home and will be happy to take a point; we go away from home and we want to win the game, and we have done that more often than not since January. I don’t think there was a great deal in it for the first 10 or 15 minutes, but once we got the goal we pretty much dominated.”
