When Jeremain Lens’ exquisite lob gave Sunderland a two-goal lead Dick Advocaat began crying. A little later, the outgoing manager expressed surprise that his team had played so well.
Those cameos confirmed two things: that Advocaat really was leaving and precisely why he wanted out. Sunderland’s best performance for months – they would have won had Fabio Borini not missed an excellent chance and Lens not been subsequently sent off – came far too late for a coach badly let down by both a group of hitherto underachieving, overly powerful, players and the club’s owner, Ellis Short.
If only Lee Cattermole and Steven Fletcher – both outstanding here and almost unrecognisable from their wretched early season selves – had pulled themselves together a little earlier things might have been very different. Sunderland surely would not have been going into a second international break still seeking a first League win.
Rather than flying home to the Netherlands on Saturday evening after saying farewell to his squad, Sunderland’s manager might have turned up for the Sunday morning training session he had been scheduled to supervise. Instead Sunday morning camera crews assembled at the club’s Academy of Light practice base, waiting for the official confirmation of the 68-year-old’s departure which finally arrived at lunchtime.
A sense of deja vu permeated the autumnal Wearside air. Ostensibly Advocaat has little in common with Paolo Di Canio but both masterminded dramatic springtime missions to rescue Sunderland from relegation before seeing everything fall apart once they began standing up to, and sometimes dropping, influential dressing room figures.
Granted Advocaat went about things with a bit more subtlety than the maverick Italian but the outcome was broadly similar. Significantly both men lacked room for manoeuvre after being forced into corners courtesy of some sub-standard player recruitment.
Having persuaded Advocaat to reverse an initial decision to retire in June, it seemed that this time Short must have heeded the former Holland coach’s advice that around six high-calibre signings were required if another relegation struggle was to be avoided, genuine competition created and the squad’s mindset recalibrated.
Instead eight new recruits arrived for a net total of £22m. Unfortunately for Advocaat only three – Lens, Borini and the Rubin Kazan loanee Yann M’Vila – were of the necessary quality. Supposed bargains such as Younès Kaboul screamed “false economy”.
As the “old guard” players, who in April had mustered an annual rally against relegation, regressed into their traditionally much less effective early season mode, Advocaat clearly concluded enough was enough.
When Fletcher swept M’Vila’s clever free-kick beyond Adrián, he remained impassive but the Lens lob revealed the inner conflict of a man who has clearly fallen in love with the club and its fans – 43,000 turned up on Saturday – if not its politics.
“Yeah, of course he cried,” said Slaven Bilic, West Ham’s manager. “Only he knows what he feels inside but it’s hard when you’re struggling. It’s hard to cope with the amount of pressure you’re getting from basically everyone. Apart from your family, everybody’s criticising you.
“A lot of times it’s not in a polite way and for a gentleman who has done just about everything in his life in different countries with international and club football maybe he thinks ‘I don’t need this now’. But I rate him so much. He will be missed in the Premier League. There aren’t many managers like Dick Advocaat.”
Even Advocaat proved powerless to prevent Carl Jenkinson shooting West Ham back into the match after meeting Victor Moses’ cross, Lens collecting a second yellow card for rashly tackling Winston Reid from behind or Dimitri Payet’s simple finish on the rebound punishing Costel Pantilimon for parrying Manuel Lanzini’s shot. Well before the slightly disappointing Payet’s slapdash mistake prefaced Lens’ goal, West Ham were reminded there is no place for complacency at this level. “Sunderland surprised us a bit,” said Bilic’s midfielder Mark Noble. “They were really sharp. We’d won at Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City, some players maybe thought it would be easy. But playing here can be tough.”
As Advocaat will testify, managing Sunderland is infinitely harder.
Man of the match Yann M’Vila (Sunderland)
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