Sunderland dropped points against Millwall at the weekend, and former player Danny Collins has pinpointed exactly what went wrong for the Black Cats.
A trip to The Den is never easy, especially with Millwall in good form this season, but Sunderland will be bitterly disappointed not to have taken all three points on Saturday after leading from the tenth minute right into injury time.
But, after Milan Aleksic’s big miss in the dying moments of the game, Millwall sprung an incisive counter attack and punished Sunderland for not killing the game off earlier.
The result saw the Black Cats drop to second place in the Championship table, and Regis Le Bris has now been told where he needs to make improvements to prevent a slip-up like that happening again.
- READ MORE: Regis Le Bris shares strange verdict on Millwall’s late goal vs Sunderland – fans won’t like it
Sunderland are inviting pressure onto themselves
After the game, Sunderland fans directed their frustration at Le Bris for not being proactive enough in securing the win against Millwall.
Now, Danny Collins has backed up that claim, and pointed out that Sunderland have not been ruthless and dominant enough in the second halves of games.
He told Total Sport: “Second halves for me is a concern. It was a carbon copy of the Coventry game, really, where we had a good 30/35 minutes against Coventry, got the goals, and should’ve put them to bed.
“We come out second half, sat off, and almost invited them onto us, and that was the same case for me at the weekend.”
Sunderland need to be more ruthless this season
To be fair, Regis Le Bris is very aware that his side need to start scoring that all-important second goal to kill games off.
Generally speaking, that ruthless edge is the difference between champions and the almost-rans, and Sunderland have to start controlling games when they take the lead if they want to remain around the top of the table come the end of the season.
| Statistic | Millwall 1st half | Sunderland 1st Half | Millwall 2nd half | Sunderland 2nd half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Possession | 53% | 47% | 70% | 30% |
| xG | 0.03 | 0.64 | 1.39 | 0.33 |
| Big chances | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Shots | 1 | 5 | 10 | 4 |
| Passes | 159 | 139 | 241 | 111 |
Sunderland showed a clear decline in the second half on Saturday, conceding possession, creating less goalscoring opportunities, and letting Millwall dictate the flow of play with their passing.
That kind of complacency is not conducive to a successful side over the course of a season, and Le Bris simply must instill in his team a killer instinct, or they will quickly fade out of this title race.