Four things we learnt after a sub-par Sunderland performance resulted in a 1-0 defeat away to Huddersfield.
The Black Cats’ goal going into the game was to move up into the top six. With three wins in their previous games, including a 3-1 triumph over Plymouth over the weekend, Sunderland had seven points going into the match.
But in John Smith’s Stadium, Michael Beale’s team never really got going, thus they were unable to maintain this momentum.
This was exploited by Huddersfield, as Matty Pearson scored the game’s lone goal. As a result, Sunderland dropped to 10th place in the Championship standings and suffered their first loss in four games.
Here are four lessons we took away from the contest, looking back at the game.
Another sloppy first-half from Sunderland
Similar to the previous Saturday, Sunderland struggled to build momentum in the first half. The Black Cats were careless and failed to produce anything in the first forty-five minutes of the game, even if they ended it in a memorable manner.
Their performance was summed up by the goal they gave up. Anthony Patterson just partially parried a deft freekick. After deflecting to Pearson, it struck him before entering the goal.
Similar to Plymouth, it was another goal that could have been avoided, adding needless effort to the visitors’ second-half workload.
Set pieces become Sunderland’s nightmare
Sunderland could not handle Huddersfield’s threat from set pieces. The hosts looked dangerous every single time and the Black Cats could not handle them.
Not only did the opener come from a free-kick, but Huddersfield could have had even more. Following the goal, Sunderland did not learn their lesson and continued to give away sloppy set pieces.
Huddersfield were more than happy to accommodate this and almost made it 2-0 as they hit the post directly from a free-kick in the second half.
Just before the hour mark, the Terriers went close again, this time off a corner as Jobe Bellingham had to be in the right place, at the right time to clear the ball off the line.
Sunderland are too reliant on Jack Clarke
The match made it abundantly clear that Sunderland depends too much on Clarke. Clarke had scored nine goals more than any other Sunderland player going into the match with 14 goals this season.
The 23-year-old had a rare poor performance against Huddersfield, as nothing really clicked for the attacker. It is therefore no accident that during the whole game, the Black Cats produced little and had few clear scoring opportunities.
Beale needs to resolve this problem very away if they want to continue pushing for the playoffs. Sunderland’s campaign might not succeed if they depend only on one man.
Sunderland need to bounce back quickly
For Beale’s team, it was an unmemorable game. They lost to the relegation-threatened Huddersfield, which was probably one of their poorest games of the season.
This season, Sunderland has demonstrated time and again that they are more than capable of putting up strong, memorable displays. Beale must now make sure that this loss is an isolated incident for his team.
On Saturday, the Black Cats will travel one more as they play Birmingham. To get their playoff drive back on track, Sunderland needs to capitalise on the fact that the Blues are in a similar scenario to Huddersfield.
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