Sunderland haven’t won a Premier League match on a Monday night since April Fool’s Day 2002.
That’s 19 games, so it’s not much of a joke.
They will try for the 20th time at White Hart Lane tomorrow night. And if the curse of Black Monday holds, the Black Cats will be heading for a black hole.
It’s all unravelled with frightening speed at the Stadium of Light.
In the first week of February, fans were celebrating a 3-0 thrashing of Newcastle United at St James’ Park to take their points haul to ten from four games. In amongst that was the Capital One Cup semi-final victory over Manchester United.
It seemed like Gus Poyet had a handle on the dire situation he inherited from Paolo Di Canio.
It would only be a matter of time before they were comfortably clear of the drop zone. Maybe there would even be a trophy to go with safety? Sunderland’s trump card was that ahead were lots of winnable home matches against teams like Hull, Crystal Palace and West Ham.
But those games have yielded just one draw. Three away fixtures have brought nothing at all, making it one point from 18.
Teams around them have crawled upwards and now even a win at Tottenham would mean they are still in the bottom three.
Their final three away games are at Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United. With their recent record against teams around them, they can take no comfort from knowing their last three home fixtures are Cardiff, West Brom and Swansea.
The goals have dried to a trickle, players of vast experience are making novice mistakes and Poyet is talking about walking away if he feels that his players aren’t giving everything.
The Uruguayan, like Di Canio, has brought in his own men. But few of the 16 or so signings made in the last two windows are anywhere near Premier League quality.
Poyet has largely relied on the old guard whose performances got Martin O’Neill the sack and whose open rebellion cost Di Canio his job.
Now it looks like they could let Poyet down too.
Players like John O’Shea, Wes Brown, Lee Cattermole, Phil Bardsley and Seb Larsson are the common factor in 18 months of horrendous results under three different managers.
It’s time they did something about it.
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