Rowell Report: Sunderland's draw against Southampton sees history has a way of repeating itself

Even when Sunderland get a hard earned and valuable away point, like they did at Southampton, you can still end up feeling disappointed.
Sunderlands Adnan Januzaj comes to a dead end against SouthamptonSunderlands Adnan Januzaj comes to a dead end against Southampton
Sunderlands Adnan Januzaj comes to a dead end against Southampton

Just like last season at the same ground, Sunderland threw away two points by conceding a late goal that came from an error from young Jordan Pickford – who up until then hadn’t put a foot wrong.

David Moyes rung the changes at St Mary’s, five in all from the Boro game, and for me, the most important was Lamine Kone back in the team.

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I just hope he is there to stay now and that his partnership with Papy Djilobodji can be as effective as the one he had with Younes Kaboul.

I like what I have seen from Djilobodji up to now, and as the centre-back pairing is the most important partnership pairing in any football team, I am hoping the pair of them can gel and be the foundations for the rest of the team to be built around.

It was also good to see Javier Manquillo given an early debut.

But looking at our threadbare squad we still need a couple of midfielders, a striker and goalkeeper as a minimum.

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At the time of writing, there are still a couple of days left in the window and the club can’t afford to waste a single minute of that time.

I wasn’t impressed with Southampton, I expected more from them and maybe the years of losing top players and managers every summer will catch up with them as they were relieved to salvage a point at the end from a game they probably went into expecting all three.

David Moyes, I’m sure, will have mixed feelings but at least he has his first point as Sunderland boss and before the game I am sure most Sunderland fans would have taken a 1-1 draw – I would have.

Sunderland have made the exact same bad start to the season as the last one, taking just a single point from the first nine available.

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait until the end of October to record our first win this time round, or the annual relegation battle will be inevitable.