Wise Men Say: It's the hope you can't stand as a Sunderland fan - and at the moment there isn't any

‘It’s the hope I can’t stand’ is a term commonly used amongst Sunderland supporters.

It’s been passed down through generations of supporters suffering the inevitable heartache.

It says a lot really, it tells you all you need to know about our history as a football club.

Whenever we’re down, there is often a glimmer of hope to keep us going, to remind ourselves that things could potentially get better.

We could actually not be rubbish for two minutes, and you just don’t want to miss it.

At this moment in time, I’m not sure.

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For the first time in my life I’m struggling to find any hope to cling on to. I’ve stopped getting that feeling of “yeah, but we might win”, or “It’ll turn soon enough” because I’m just not sure it will ever happen.

This trudged, bleak road that we are continuing to go down shows no sign of the ‘hope’ that a U-turn randomly placed for a swift swing back into the right direction would.

Each week brings a new set of dread. A new low. We didn’t think it would get this bad, but it has.

When Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven sat down in front of the North East press 18 months ago, and told us that the mick-taking party was over.

Who would’ve thought that now, still, we’re not turning and if anything, gathering more speed than ever before into oblivion.

I would be hopeful, if we could get something right, anything - but all I see and continue to see is inadequacy.

Inadequate decision makers, haunting us.

It’s almost as though Ellis Short's final decision as Sunderland owner is turning out to be as poor as any he made in the decade in charge.

Our faith is being pushed to its limits and all I ask is that we are offered some kind of direction that isn’t down, because quite-frankly, I’m getting fed-up of watching my football club churn one poor decision after another.