Our man: Cats players should taste fans' pain
Roy Keane could do worse than make his players spend this week in the watering holes of Wearside, mixing with the punters, to bring home to them how much the loss of a derby means to their supporters.
He's a big believer in character-building and there's no doubt that sending his players into the pubs and clubs of Silksworth, Shiney Row and South Hetton would be a far sterner test than any amount of mountain-biking, paint-balling or white-water rafting.
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Defeat in this derby is death-in-the-family-time for most fans on either side.
And for an awful lot of Sunderland supporters, the simple truth is that if their team were to beat Boro, Bolton and Arsenal in their final three games, it wouldn't make up for yesterday's defeat.
They're proud people Sunderland fans and worse than a defeat is the knowledge that their team failed to step up to the plate – that when the test came, they were found wanting.
How can you take pride in that? And that's what happened yesterday.
Maybe the manager's players did understand the game's significance.
Maybe.
A few of them played like it counted. But it's one thing understanding the game's importance and another thing delivering on it.
Far too many of his team lacked the fire in their bellies which was the least that was required in the fixture that is the biggest in the season as far as their supporters are concerned.
And despite the manager's suggestion that his players understood what was at stake, no-one on Wearside seemed to believe him.
Not one player stood out on either side – Michael Owen was the pick of the bunch, I guess, but he was gifted one goal, while another was offered to him from the penalty spot.
And the game was calling out for a Roy Keane or a Kevin Ball to take it by the scruff of the neck because it looked like Newcastle were there for the taking.
But not one person in Sunderland's side imposed themselves on the game and that – as much as the team selection and formation – cost them dearly.
The spirits of Sunderland fans dropped when the team sheet was produced with no Jonny Evans or Phil Bardsley on it.
Those two have been the key to an impressive defensive resilience and you had to fear the worst when the team was deprived of the snap of Bardsley and the composure of Evans.
But Sunderland didn't help themselves with an unambitious formation which left Jones as a lone striker against a team whose defence is their Achilles heel.
Nor was there much to be gained in playing Andy Reid just behind him – the sight of the team's playmaker wasting his energy chasing down opposition full-backs made the heart sink.
Keane himself had said 4-4-2 was the formation which best suited Sunderland – a lesson learned from the Chelsea game at the Stadium of Light and in the matches that followed.
So to depart from that, seemed strange.
Then there was the personnel.
Leaving aside Paul McShane, who had a game he can only want to forget at right-back, you had to wonder at the wisdom of bringing Liam Miller into a derby game when he had not played competitive first-team football since January, especially as his nimble tippy-tappy style of football hardly seemed best suited to the cut and thrust of a passionate derby.
Then there was Daryl Murphy – who Keane himself has said has failed to look as impressive away from home as he has done at the Stadium of Light. Were we really to expect a towering performance from him at St James's Park?
Meanwhile, local lads Grant Leadbitter and Michael Chopra looked on impotently from the bench – Leadbitter not involved at all; Chopra given 10 minutes at the end.
It is unfair to single any player out for criticism because football's a team game but the truth was that Sunderland's team didn't really perform against a Newcastle side which might well have been packed with world-class players but which certainly didn't play like world-beaters on the day.
Sunderland have played much worse in other games this season than they did on Tyneside yesterday and the criticism they have, and will receive this week, might seem harsh to neutrals.
But there's no room for neutrality on Tyneside or Wearside in this fixture.
Sunderland may be red and white but this game is all about black and white – win, or play well and you're a hero; lose, or play badly and you're a villain.
Sunderland had a chance to be heroes yesterday – just as they had the first time these teams met this season – but once again, they didn't take it.
Inviting opportunities were squandered and who is to say when they will present themselves in this fixture again?
So it remains eight years waiting for a win in any Tyne-Wear derby for Sunderland and, astonishingly, more than quarter-of-a-century for a home win.
It is too, too long.
And Sunderland's players have to accept every criticism they get this week as pay-back for their own failure to deliver, yet again, to the fans who give their team their all every single week and who deserve to be given local pride a little more often than once every nine years or so.
Roy Keane says he measures his team's performances by how much the fans will enjoy their pints after the game.
He can be assured that they choked on them this weekend.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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