Sam Allardyce looked slightly rueful. “I could have been relaxing in Dubai now, enjoying the sun,” said Sunderland’s manager. “I don’t feel that great at the moment.”
His downbeat demeanour was less to do with the unrelenting greyness of one of those thoroughly unappealing November days when travel agents can expect brisk trade than with the multiple deficiencies residing in the home dressing room. “Another defeat makes you more desperate but desperation is something you’ve got to try and avoid,” said Allardyce, who had just seen a much improved defensive performance undermined by a shocking lapse of judgment on the part of the otherwise impressive Yann M’Vila.
The former France midfielder’s unnecessary lunge on a less than menacingly positioned Ryan Bertrand prefaced Dusan Tadic’s confident, left-foot execution of the second-half penalty which kept Southampton’s European ambitions very much alive.
Sunderland were left stuck in the relegation zone with only one Premier League win to their name. If Allardyce’s achievement in transforming the previously alarming central defensive pairing of Sebastián Coates and Younès Kaboul into a latter-day version of the Berlin Wall should not be underestimated, his team’s lack of attacking threat and inability to retain possession triggered deep concern.
It is not the manager’s fault that, realistically, he requires one commodity now in short supply – time – to get this team functioning efficiently. “There are talented, experienced, Premier League-level players here,” said Allardyce. “They’ve got to use that talent and experience more. I have to get the whole team better than they are at the moment.”
Once again Sunderland – somehow – attracted almost 42,000 and once again they let that crowd down. One of the theories Allardyce is exploring is a sense that some of his players freeze when confronted by such large, sometimes understandably critical, audiences. Significantly, this fear factor played a big part in Ronald Koeman’s choreography.
Having asked his players to hog the ball and press assiduously when they lost it, Southampton’s manager simply sat back and enjoyed watching Jordy Clasie, Steven Davis, Tadic and friends pass the Wearsiders off the pitch.
“We came with a philosophy about playing on the emotion of the situation Sunderland are in,” said José Fonte, half of an elegantly assured centre-half partnership with Virgil van Dijk. “We knew the fans could turn on them and the longer it went on the worse it could get for Sunderland if we kept the ball like we did. Our gameplan was to capitalise on the tensions here. We perhaps should have done better with our final ball but we were patient, switched the play from side to side and in the end we got the penalty.”
It was sufficient to maintain Southampton’s unbeaten away record and leave Fonte reminding Jürgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino that Koeman has now parked his tanks on their front lawns.
“Liverpool and Spurs are massive clubs,” he said. “But history and tradition does not play a part in where you finish. We don’t see ourselves as a smaller team than them. We belong in this area. We’ve already shown we can compete with anyone – and the fourth Champions League place could be open this year. We’re going to give it a real go.”
Only yards away Kaboul inhabited a very different world. He chose to illustrate this reality with a perhaps unfortunate analogy. “The positive is that the people here really care about the club,” said Allardyce’s captain for the day. “It’s similar to Portsmouth. The people who work at the club and the fans are amazing. The mentality and love and dedication from everyone around here I find amazing. That helped when we stayed up with Portsmouth. You have the support from the town. Up here the people live for the club. We have to respect that.”
It all rather begs the question as to whether Allardyce’s financially secure squad – collectively the eighth-best paid in the Premier League – care enough?
Kaboul’s advice is to keep the faith. “It’s tough because Sam has just come in,” he said. “But Sam’s the right man. He knows how to coach – and he’s got a big brain.”
Man of the match Dusan Tadic (Southampton)
