Two pressing issues dominate north-east football conversation this weekend. While Sunderland fans debate their team’s chances of extending an extraordinary run of three straight wins against Newcastle United, others involved in Sunday’s Tyne-Wear derby question whether a much-vaunted truce between rival supporters will hold.
Much may hinge on the way in which Alan Pardew and Gus Poyet confront two sets of respective problems. While Newcastle’s manager could do without needing to rely on Jak Alnwick, the club’s third-choice goalkeeper, Poyet travels to St James’ Park having achieved only two Premier League wins all season.
Quite apart from being desperately inexperienced, Alnwick – starting due to injuries to Tim Krul and Rob Elliot – is said to have been upset after conceding eight goals in the space of a week. A pair of hefty defeats, at Arsenal in the League and Tottenham Hotspur in the Capital One Cup, have slightly taken the shine off Pardew’s startling transformation from everyone’s favourite for the sack to the current manager of the month.
Not that the award will cut much ice with Gallowgate Enders who may not forgive him were he to become the first Newcastle manager to suffer four successive defeats against the detested local enemy.
As things stand, he has already lost his last four duels with Poyet. The Uruguayan, in charge of Sunderland for the past two derbies, earlier embarrassed Pardew by twice knocking Newcastle out of the FA Cup during his time in charge at Brighton.
Indeed, warm memories of February’s 3-0 triumph on Tyneside have possibly helped persuade Sunderland fans to offer Paolo Di Canio’s successor patience in the face of some, at times, dismal football this season but there is a sense that, should Pardew finally prevail on Sunday, Wearsiders could begin turning on a coach prone to blaming everyone else for his side’s flaws.
From the outside it may appear bizarre that a single game could potentially prove such a watershed for both men but with two of the best supported clubs in England without a trophy between them in the past 41 years, these games have assumed a perhaps disproportionate importance.
It dictates that the potentially pivotal clash between Moussa Sissoko and Lee Cattermole, not to mention the performance of the former Sunderland favourite Jack Colback in the home midfield, could have ramifications way beyond the confines of the pitch. Northumbria police must trust any fallout does not spill over on to thronged city centre streets within a goal-kick of St James’.
Past derbies have been scarred by a toxic, loutish, violence-tinged atmosphere out of sync with the spirit of this generally most friendly, generous-minded region. A nadir was reached when a fan was jailed for punching a police horse in the face after Di Canio’s then side triumphed 3-0 at St James’ in April 2013. A year earlier, in a 1-1 draw at the Stadium of Light, disturbing “hope you die” chants were directed at the visitors’ Steven Taylor.
Then came July this year and the tragedy of flight MH17, which claimed the lives of John Alder and Liam Sweeney when the Malaysian airlines jet was brought down over eastern Ukraine. The pair were en route to New Zealand to follow Newcastle’s pre-season tour but within hours of the awful news emerging, Sunderland fans were spotted among those laying wreaths outside St James’. Later they would contribute significantly to fundraising efforts for the bereaved families and, detecting a burgeoning and enduring spirit of rapprochement, Northumbria Police decided to adopt a new softly, softly policy towards one of the calendar’s most intense fixtures.
Its implementation leaves Sunderland supporters free to make Sunday’s 12‑mile journey independently rather than on official transport. Similarly roads will not be sealed off and away supporters will not be marched anywhere by columns of police in riot gear with dogs.
Sceptics say such a military-style operation would have been fraught with difficulty anyway. After all, St James’ is unusual in being a city centre stadium and, with Christmas looming, Sunday shoppers are certain to be out in force. Given the volume of people packing all available thoroughfares, road closures, police-patrolled “rings of steel” and inconvenient public transport restrictions would arguably provoke more problems than solutions.
Ch Supt Steve Neill of Northumbria police demurs. He is convinced that attitudes really have changed. “Some of the things that have happened in previous years need to be consigned to history,” says Neill. “The police engagement strategy will be very friendly and very festive. We’re not going out on some sort of battle footing. We feel it’s going to be a very positive derby.”
Some Sunderland followers are beginning to blame negative tactics for a series of interminable draws but, with his side two points above the relegation zone, Poyet has risked conflict with Ellis Short, Sunderland’s owner, and Lee Congerton, the sporting director, after some pointed comments before the January transfer window.
“It’s clear what’s missing from the team,” he says. “That side of it is down to the recruitment department. I’m not going to be a head coach when it suits people and a manager when it doesn’t. If we don’t get more quality it will be 38 games and 38 points. For the quality we’ve got, we’re passing the ball as well as we can.”
Yet given Sunderland’s currently tight budget, there is a strong argument that Congerton is doing a pretty decent job. Maybe Poyet’s refusal to deviate from his beloved, defensive 4-1-4-1 system, regularly featuring the centre forward Connor Wickham deployed on the left wing, represents the key problem?
Perhaps he could do with emulating a neighbour. Combined with a concerted promotion of youth, Pardew’s autumnal switch from a rigid 4-2-3-1 to a flexible, very counterattacking 4-3-3 almost certainly saved his job. Whether his gameplan will be good enough to both protect Alnwick and finally undo Poyet remains to be seen but much depends on the fear factor.
“The derby’s like a cup final,” says Sunderland’s Adam Johnson. “On the pitch there’s a completelydifferent feeling. There’s a tension. Everyone wants to win it so badly there’s real fear.”
