Heading into the first weekend fixtures of May, Sunderland know their fate.
They are down and out of the Premier League for the first time since 2007/08.
This season, David Moyes’ side have been woeful.
They have played 34 games and have the joint lowest goals total, the lowest non-penalty
goals total, have created the second fewest chances, and are the only side yet to score
a headed goal or a goal from a set piece.
By the end of the season, Sunderland will have spent
261 days in the bottom three, the joint 5th most in a single Premier League season by any side.
Sunderland have been consistently not a great team since coming into the Premier League
again, but something about this season seems particularly awry.
Since their first season after winning promotion back into the Premier League
in 2006/07, Sunderland have never had a positive goal difference, have never won even
a third of their games, and their highest finish was in 10 th place.
Oddly, their safest season was not their highest finish, but the 2009/10 relegation vintage
of Burnley, Hull City, and Portsmouth were particularly
bad, hence the relative safety for teams like Sunderland, Bolton, Wigan and others.
This season, of course, they are in the relegation zone and will stay there.
Even factoring in the number of games played, with Sunderland having four left of this
season, David Moyes has presided over a real decline.
While Sunderland have rarely been anything but mediocre, only twice have they
failed to average over one point per game since
2007/08, and only twice have they failed to secure less than 0.2 wins per game.
While ​2008/09 saw the Blacks Cats getting less than
a point per game, and 2014/15 saw them winning less than a fifth of games, Moyes
has the distinction of overseeing both and the lowest tallies for both.
Not only that, but Sunderland have been poor going forwards and in defence.
While shots on target for and shots on target against
are not a perfect representation of a team’s health,
because not all shots are equal as expected goals shows, Sunderland’s performance this
season has been their worst by some margin.
Even with four games left, Sunderland have almost given up their most shots on target
against since re-joining England’s top flight, and they would need to register 25 shots on
target in their remaining four games to equal their lowest total of shots on target for.
When this is represented as a per game metric, the picture is even clearer.
While Sunderland have only registered four or more shots on target for per game since
2007/08, this season they could even dip below three for the first time.
But it’s at the back where Moyes’ side have been especially poor.
The number of shots on target against has crept steadily up as a general trend, barring
a minor dip in 2011/12 and another one in 2014/15, but this season the jump downwards has been pronounced.
Moyes’ team selections and unwillingness to select anything approaching a regular eleven
has undermined the side’s defensive cohesion, his signings have not worked, and the side
lacks quality everywhere except in goal, where Jordan Pickford has been pretty heroic in
the face of such collective failure in front of him.
Sunderland have never been great but under David Moyes, they have been bad, by their
own standards as well as those set by the other teams in 2016/17.