Sunderland need to learn how to keep clean sheets again

“It has gone almost unnoticed that we have forgotten how to keep clean sheets, even though the lack of

goals from our strikers has been a concern all season,” writes Mark Wood.

Six straight losses are perhaps the most indicative of a team in serious trouble than any other statistic.

The Sunderland team this season has problems; some of them have existed since last August, while

others have surfaced in the past several months.

Our strikers still only have three goals this season, even into March and after 37 games. Many supporters

have complained that we haven’t given them enough crosses this season, which hasn’t been helped by

our inverted wingers. However, it must be acknowledged that we live in an era of inverted wingers, and

other teams that use the same strategy seem to be

Last season even though we only had strikers for a limited amount of the campaign, the same tactic saw

Ross Stewart hit 10 goals in 11 starts, and Ellis Simms bag 7 goals in 14 starts. And no disrespect to Ellis

Simms but he was nowhere near the calibre of Ross Stewart. If they were able to get goals in a similar

team set up, then there has to be a question asked of our present strikers.

All all, we had only scored four more goals at this point last season after 37 games, despite the

contributions of Stewart, Simms, and the vital goals of Amad.

However, a problem that is equally important as any other has emerged at the opposite end of the field:

our defense doesn’t seem to be able to keep a clean sheet.

This season, Sunderland has preserved seven clean sheets overall, but just two of those have occurred in

the 18 games.

When you watch Sunderland right now, it seems like we’re not only prone to let up a goal eventually, but

we also appear vulnerable at times. It’s evident that the players are aware of this and lack the courage or

expertise to finish a game and earn a point. Everything that is wrong in that regard was encapsulated in

Saturday’s match against Southampton,

where we managed to tie the score after a wild first half in which the defense was all over the place.

However, we left ourselves exposed as we rushed to win the game after leveling the score and deflating

the opposition instead of closing the door.