After a succession of near misses and managerial changes, Sunderland will be hoping for a period of consolidation and team building under impressive new boss Gus Poyet.

Overview

They began with Paolo Di Canio in charge, who built his team like the Japanese used to build their railways. Di Canio’s regime, as he liked to call it, worked as long as the footballers accepted they were not as good as him, and then agreed never to speak, text, drink, laugh, or do anything at all really apart from sleep, eat what Di Canio told them to eat, run, train and play football. Fine in the bottom two divisions where he’d succeeded with Swindon — players are ten a penny down there and once they have a contract they’re afraid to rebel for fear of not making mortgage payments. Millionaire Premier League players, not so much.

Di Canio was right a lot of the time. Who can forget Phil Bardsley, the very definition of bang average, drunkenly tossing £50 notes around in a casino in the middle of the night for his own general merriment? But if you could still get anywhere by throwing the crockery at these people then Peter ‘Reidy’ Reid would probably still be managing Sunderland.

A mental summer which saw 14 signings arrive from all over the world overseen by director of football Roberto De Fanti and chief scout Valentino Angeloni quickly gave way to seven defeats and a draw from their first eight matches. Crystal Palace won only one of their first ten, losing the other nine, and that was against Sunderland. After a loss at West Brom Di Canio walked onto the pitch, stood in front of an irate away end, and did some weird ‘chin up’ type gestures. He was destined for the sack, forever remembered for one glorious win at Newcastle the previous season, which he celebrated in typically low key fashion, keeping his cards close to his chest.

He was replaced by former Brighton boss Gus Poyet. The transformation was instant, but the Uruguayan developed an odd habit of winning cup games rather than league ones. The Mackems got to Wembley in the final of the League Cup, knocking out Manchester United in the semi-finals, and led Man City in the final before finally succumbing. They also made the FA Cup quarter finals.

Poyet, though, would have swapped those games for league points. The Wembley defeat seemed to have a profound effect on his side — they lost six and drew one of seven immediately afterwards, culminating in a 5-1 loss at Tottenham after which Poyet admitted his team needed a miracle to survive.

That miracle was Connor Wickham finally kicking into life three years after his big money move from Ipswich. The muscular 21-year old has only scored nine times in 51 appearances in his entire Sunderland career but five of those came in a clutch of three games at the end of last season as Sunderland recorded four straight successes, including wins at Chelsea and Man Utd, to move clear of danger.

Last summer Sunderland signed players at a rate of one a week for the entire close season, and the names had even football aficionados reaching for their Rothman’s Year Book. There’s a marked difference in acquisition strategy this summer.
Things started badly, losing Jack Colback to bitter rivals Newcastle after the cheeky ginge let his contract run down and then revealed he’d been a Geordie all along before leaping onto the Metro and flicking V signs as the train moved off towards Tyneside. It didn’t look like getting much better when they agreed a fee of £14m for Fabio Borini — roughly four times what he’s worth — and they still seem keen to do that deal, rather than run for the hills, despite it initially falling through. To compound matters Wickham won’t extend his contract and is attracting interest in a cut-price deal.

But Poyet is proving himself to be a highly capable football manager. My affection for him is sadly tapered by the amount of time he spent gleefully paddling round the racist troglodyte’s cesspit down the road but on balance I’d love him at QPR because his teams play exciting, entertaining, winning football and he knows how to build an ethos, a team and ingrain a style of play. Sunderland, at the moment, frequently sign players I’d like at QPR for bargain prices. Will Buckley from Brighton for £2.5m today is a snip, just as Liam Bridcutt was from the same place for the same price last season. Jack Rodwell looks dear at £10m but will relish regular first team football again and in Jordi Gomez and Billy Jones Poyet has strengthened the right side of his team with talented players of Premier League experience for free.

Attracting players, particularly from abroad, to that part of the country can be tricky, and QPR stole in late to steal Chilean striker Eduardo Vargas from them last week. That leaves Sunderland light in attack, particularly if Wickham can be tempted away before 23.00 on Monday.

Scout Report

Sunderland’s main issue would appear to be goals (cue a bloody deluge) and they’re heavily reliant on either Steven Fletcher rediscovering some fitness and form, Connor Wickham staying and continuing his sudden burst from the end of last season, or a decent new arrival. Expect Either Wickham or Fletcher to play as a lone striker, with the other used off him from a wide area with support from Jack Rodwell and others.

The key man for the Mackems, more so now Colback as defected to Newcastle, is Lee Cattermole. Seen as a clogger and a hatchet merchant by fans of other clubs, he’s well liked at the Stadium of Light and the fans there say that Roy Hodgson’s decision to take their former charge from St James’ Park ahead of Cattermole is flawed. There’s a heavy weight of “well they would say that wouldn’t they” about that, but it does say something for how important he is to this team.

With Colback gone, Cattermole anchors the midfield alone, so it’s more of a 4-3-3 with him at the heart of the midfield, sitting deep, than a 4-2-3-1 as before. QPR’s success or failure int his game could depend on who can concentrate on their football rather than the aggro more out of Cattermole and Joey Barton. With Ale Faurlin now out, QPR need Barton to step up and play far, far, far better than he did against Hull and Spurs.

The final, fairly obvious, thing that QPR should look out for — which Sunderland try a lot — is sending John O’Shea to the far post for free kicks from wide areas, and everybody else to the near side so the defending team anticipates a whipped delivery. Sunderland then like to hang the ball up high, beyond O’Shea, to a late arrive from deep in the space behind him. They worked it well against Man Utd last week, but O’Shea was penalised for holding his man and preventing him getting to the runner. QPR have already conceded three goals from set pieces this season and with Jordi Gomez around — who’s been known to collapse to earth in a light breeze — free kicks could be in plentiful supply without strong refereeing.

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TacticalR added 22:12 - Aug 29 Thanks for your oppo report. It sounds like Poyet has settled the team and is slowly making improvements. Wickham looked very good for Ipswich during our Championship winning season. I am not sure what happened to him after that, but his return to form is ominous. I thought Jordi Gómez looked quite threatening when he came on late for Wigan in the League match at Loftus Road. The Borini saga is getting messy - it seems the guy just doesn't want to go there at any price.

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