Sunderland may have suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Coventry City this weekend, but Mike Dodds and Wycombe Wanderers might just have blown their promotion hopes altogether.
When Mike Dodds left Sunderland earlier this year, he took on the job at Wycombe with the Chairboys looking fairly comfortable in the automatic promotion places in League One.
However, Wycombe have been pegged back by Wrexham of late, and their dreams of making it to the Championship this season are now fading fast.
Wycombe fans have already started to lose faith in Dodds after a recent run of poor results has allowed the Red Dragons back into the fight.
And, when the two teams met at Adams Park this weekend, it was Wrexham who came away with the three points and they now hold the advantage in the promotion race.
Mike Dodds admits Wycombe Wanderers defeat was ‘brutal’
Despite earning rave reviews at the start of his tenure, Dodds has not had things his own way of late, and he’s really starting to struggle with the learning curve of full-time management, it seems.
Speaking to the press (via the Bucks Free Press) after seeing his team fall to the defeat, Dodds shared his disappointment at the result and the manner in which Wycombe succumbed to Wrexham.
He said: “The most disappointing thing is that these games, Birmingham and Wrexham, we said they would be decided by moments and after they cleared the ball the line, they scored the winner one minute and 20 seconds later.
“That’s how brutal it can be at the top and it’s a harsh lesson for us. But, I was pleased with out-of-the-possession stuff as we nullified them but they were also well organised out of possession.
“Overall, it was two teams trying to cancel each other out and sadly for us, they got that moment and we didn’t.”
| Pos | Team | Played | W | D | L | GD | Pts |
| 1 | Birmingham City | 36 | 25 | 8 | 3 | 35 | 83 |
| 2 | Wrexham | 37 | 21 | 8 | 8 | 21 | 71 |
| 3 | Wycombe Wanderers | 36 | 19 | 11 | 6 | 27 | 68 |
| 4 | Charlton Athletic | 37 | 19 | 9 | 9 | 17 | 66 |
| 5 | Stockport County | 37 | 18 | 11 | 8 | 19 | 65 |
| 6 | Huddersfield Town | 37 | 18 | 7 | 12 | 18 | 61 |
Looking ahead to the final ten games of the campaign, Dodds tried to stay positive, and put all his focus on the next game.
He added: “We just need to put this to bed as we still have 30 points to try and get this season and we’ll be ready to go again on Tuesday night at Rotherham.
“It is what it is but we have got to dust ourselves down and not feel sorry for ourselves.”
Sunderland falling apart without Mike Dodds – coincidence or not?
Since Dodds left the Sunderland coaching staff, results and performances for the Black Cats have taken a turn for the worse.
It’s safe to say Sunderland haven’t acclimatised to life without Dodds yet, and while it would be dramatic to say that his departure is the crux of the issue, it surely didn’t help matters.
Dodds brought so much stability to the club, and was essentially the main man to bridge the gap between the past and the present alongside Regis Le Bris.
Sunderland have picked up just 11 points from the eight games since Dodds left (he was still technically in the dugout for the win over Middlesbrough on February 3rd).
That’s an average of just 1.38 points-per-game (PPG) without Dodds, while the Black Cats gained 58 points from the 30 games prior to his exit (1.93 PPG).
Mike Dodds may not have been the main man at Sunderland, but his absence has certainly left a big void at the club behind the scenes.