Wise Men Say: Chance to see where Sunderland really are at

Considering Sunderland have lost their last two games, are bottom of the league and have finally admitted that they’re skint, the mood on the terrace could be a lot worse.

Whether it’s the fact honest communication has opened up or simply that three wins in four is still a recent memory, you can sense that fans are looking forward to the game against Watford.

The game is an important one in that it will offer a truer representation of Sunderland a side.

The optimist in me wants to think that the first 10 games were down to two factors: a hurtful amount of injuries and the players taking a while to get used to the new manager’s methods.

That this caused a downwards momentum that we did well to break out of. Boss David Moyes wants to think that the loss at Swansea was a blip and he wants to acknowledge that Chelsea have won 10 games on the spin for a reason.

There’s always that damn pessimist loitering around inside me too though. How can there be no loitering from your internal pessimist when you’re a Sunderland fan?

What if the win against Bournemouth was just one of those games where you’ll grab an unlikely win every 10 games or so?

Hull are surely going to go down and Leicester have taken one point on the road all season, so what’s to get carried away with there? A victory over Watford would make it three home wins in four.

We haven’t had that kind of consistent run at home for a long time, probably since O’Neill first arrived at the club.

We have been incapable of getting together any kind of form that may warn teams coming to the Stadium of Light that they are in for a game.

A win would suddenly start to make teams question whether they are guaranteed a win on Wearside simply by turning up anymore.

That, to me, would represent clear improvement and leave me quite hopeful by Christmas morning.

And if we lose?

Well it wouldn’t be Christmas without Sunderland causing you misery and worry, right?

On the news that we’re skint, it doesn’t really come as that much of a surprise to most of us, though it is quite refreshing to at least hear things as they are after chief executive Martin Bain’s message.

It’s nice to know that should the worst happen and we go down, at least we have people in place who appear to be prepared for it as well as they can be.

If Sunderland beat Watford then I’m happy to continue this kind of conversation much later in the season.