Is it time Sunderland cashed in on Van Aanholt, Borini & Co and rolled dice in transfer window casino?

The numbing inevitability of it all.

As soon as West Brom took the lead at the Hawthorns on Saturday, it was game over.

It’s quite similar to the 19-point season in many ways. A team low on confidence with a few players that should be doing a lot better than they are. A decent 20 minutes, a soft goal conceded, heads drop and a regulation defeat.

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Fabio Borini
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That little spell of form looks like it was just literally that. To be fair to David Moyes, he’s been massively hampered with injuries – and with little or no money to strengthen, or in our case replace, the sick and wounded, things are looking bleak.

After being critical of Moyes early on, I do think he might well have kept us up had we had even half of the injury problems we have faced. Losing Duncan Watmore and Victor Anichebe for long spells has proven incredibly problematic. There’s seemingly no Plan B without these two contrasting outlets.

Papy Djilibodji has returned to his early season performance levels, compounding it with a stupid punch to a West Brom face. It could be argued we’re better off without him for the inevitable three or four-match ban that will follow.

On Moyes, his honesty can be admired. But unfortunately, most fans are already on the floor and some of his comments are just kicking us when we’re down.

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Fabio Borini
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There’s expectation setting and then there’s sapping the will and hope our of the fanbase and he’s slowly sloping into the territory of the latter.

Being blunt, intentionally or not, he sounds like he’s given up.

The whole thing just needs freshening up. Too many of these players are low in confidence and carrying the weight of defeat on their shoulders. Is it time to let some go, like Van Aanholt, Mannone and Borini, and use that money in the casino that is the January transfer window?

Say we got £20-25m for the three of them, which sounds ridiculous but that’s the market we’re operating in, we might be able to bring in four or five fresh faces.

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Some different characters who could add a bit to the dressing room maybe? Then we’re getting into March time and we should hopefully be nearing a full strength squad to choose from.

It’s frankly ludicrous that we’re still in touch of safety given how awful we’ve been this season. While we’ve still got a chance I feel we need to manipulate our situation a little and roll the dice. If we keep going the way we have been then we’ll be going down, there’s no doubt in my mind about that now.

We know a couple of results will get us out of the bottom three and we need to find a way to lift things all over the place.

I’d like to see a little more positivity from the manager’s mouth too because the players and the fans are on the floor at the moment.

Moyes needs to squeeze every drip out of every bloody stone under his control at the moment and, sadly, I don’t feel like he is.