Sunderland’s five-game unbeaten run came to an end at Stoke City this weekend, and Chris Mepham claims the defeat shows exactly where the Black Cats need to improve.
After a run of six games without a win, Sunderland had shown massive signs of improvement of late, and appeared to be right back in the title race heading into the New Year.
However, a late defeat to Stoke on Sunday delivered Regis Le Bris’ first defeat in five games, and means Sunderland have now lost ground at the top of the Championship table.
However, while Le Bris had reasons to be positive after the game, Chris Mepham has highlighted some of the more worrying things he saw in the defeat.
Chris Mepham laments Sunderland’s pattern of conceding late goals
Speaking to the official Sunderland Twitter/X account after the game, Mepham explained why his team arguably deserved all three points at the Bet365 Stadium, and pinpointed a major flaw in Sunderland’s recent performances.
He said: “Obviously a really frustrating result… you’d feel hard done by drawing the game 0-0, we created much better chances, but that’s the story of our season, we haven’t really gotten the results we deserve. It’s been a big learning curve, with games now where we concede late, it’s something we need to fix.”
Mepham then went on to discuss the season as a whole, and how he hopes the Sunderland squad don’t end up regretting results like this come the end of the year.
“You’ve always got to put things into perspective,” he added. “You’d expect in our current form to get a result here but you see it time and time again, that no team gives an easy three points, you have to work and stay switched on for the full 90. Today we’ve fallen short, but there’s plenty of positives.”
“You want to get to the end of the season and not have any regrets, but right now we are carrying a little bit of regret,” Mepham concluded. “There is still plenty of time to put it right though, and we’ve got a good enough squad to do that.”
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Defensive complacency has to be resolved or Sunderland can kiss promotion goodbye
In recent weeks, we have seen Sunderland put themselves on track for promotion by developing a resiliency that had helped them fight back from deficits and gain valuable points.
That impressive run came to an end against Stoke, and while the young squad does appear to be able to grind out results more effectively now, there are still two major issues for the Black Cats.
First and foremost, Sunderland need goals if they are to keep up this push for promotion. Sunderland fans want a new striker in January, and that looks to be an absolute necessity.
But, as Mepham says, the team cannot afford to let strong positions slip by switching off in defence. The best teams in the Championship are all incredibly solid at the back, and if Sunderland want to be among them come the end of the season, they need to tighten up.