Rowell Report: Bad start stats reveal an uncomfortable truth for Sunderland

No wonder Sunderland are always in a relegation battle, how can you not be when you make atrocious starts which results in always playing catch-up?

This season, the reason for the bad start has been the departure of Sam Allardyce.

Last year it was a gruelling pre-season schedule that left the players drained and the years before that bad recruitment in the summer transfer window.

There is always an excuse or something that goes wrong and most of it is self-inflicted but occasionally it is unavoidable but we never cope well and it seems Sunderland take longer to recover from set-backs than others.

Southampton are the classic example of a club that loses a huge amount of players and managers most seasons yet they don’t seem to have a problem carrying on as if nothing has happened.

Any club with a stadium, training facilities and loyal fan base the size of ours has so much going for it, yet rarely do we make it count.