Sunderland slipped closer to the bottom of the table after a 2-0 defeat against Arsenal during the weekend. Even though the score looks much better than the 8-0 thrashing that they suffered last week at the hands of Southampton, it still is no better when it comes to getting them out of relegation trouble. The pressure on manager Gus Poyet, who managed an incredible escape from relegation last season, is continuing to rise. The Uruguayan has indirectly pleaded for patience from the club. He says that the club cannot afford to rebuild every summer and he says that the players should improve a lot.
Unlike against Southampton, individual errors were responsible for the defeat against Arsenal. Wes Brown and Vito Mannone were responsible for the poor costly errors that led to Arsenal goals from summer signing Alexis Sanchez. Apart from it, they are resilient in defence and also showed a few good moments in attack. The result, though, stands out from the rest of the crowd, as Sunderland slipped into the bottom three because of other results going against them. Even though they are just one point away from safety, it does not look Sunderland are capable of getting three points from their next few matches in this kind of form.
“I’ll tell you one instance that you probably don’t know: eight players from the Arsenal starting line-up last year are here, they are in Arsenal’s squad; seven players from Sunderland’s starting XI last year here are not even at Sunderland. We don’t want to start next year again from zero and have another seven players in the starting XI. They are just mistakes that happen in football and, unfortunately, it’s going a little bit against us at the moment,” said Poyet about his squad while also defending his signings like Mannone.