Gus Poyet was shocked by his struggling Sunderland side’s 4-0 surrender to a renascent Aston Villa at the Stadium of Light and concedes he is unsure of his immediate future on Wearside.
Although Sunderland remain just outside the Premier League’s relegation zone they have won only twice at home in the league all season and last collected three points when they beat Burnley back in January. In six subsequent league games Poyet’s players have scored only twice.
“I understand there will be a focus on my position because I’m responsible, I am one of the few in football who is honest,” said Poyet. “I am responsible when things go wrong. When you are responsible you have to take it. I haven’t spoken to the owner. I don’t know if I’m going to speak to the owner. We’ll see.”
Asked if he wanted to keep trying to put things right, the reply was swift. “That’s not in question,” he said, before revealing the depth of his disquiet at a setback involving the concession of four first-half goals. “The first half was really a mix of disappointment and shock. It was awful to watch but sometimes things happen for a reason.”
Many in a crowd of almost 46,000 reacted to that 45 minutes by heading for the exits. At the interval the ground seemed half empty, and fans had to be restrained by stewards as they made clear their discontent.
Poyet was less than happy with a comment from former team-mate Chris Sutton in a BBC blog in which he likened Sebastian Larsson’s delayed return for the second half to a pub team player having a cigarette at half-time.
Poyet said: “Seb Larsson is one of the biggest and best professionals we have got at the football club. He had a massive cut in his leg, they were trying to stitch it, they couldn’t do it quickly enough. It’s very disrespectful about one hell of a professional. Seb Larsson doesn’t deserve that.”
It was hard to credit that Villa, celebrating a third straight victory under Tim Sherwood, had previously been without an away League goal for 614 minutes. Villa’s manager though took time to support his one-time Tottenham team-mate. “Gus will bounce back,” he said. “There’s one thing Gus has got – a bigger heart than anyone.
“We’ve taken a fantastic step towards safety. We’ve managed to drag Sunderland into the relegation battle now and push them underneath us but there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
