Wise Men Say: Sunderland need to be aggressive all over the pitch, or we'll keep on suffering

I say that because, obviously, we’ve had some thrashings along the way, but the Ipswich game was a whole new level of frustration and disappointment.

Ipswich were pretty dire.

I gather Mick McCarthy couldn’t believe they were leading at the break, never mind having a two-goal cushion to boot.

They looked lethargic and Sunderland were the better side for most of the second half.

But, as the game wore on, it occurred to me that maybe this is the way Ipswich had planned it all along.

We were kept at arms length by a team in first gear.

They registered one shot on target in the first half and scored twice.

They should’ve been three up at the end of the 90 minutes after Martin Waghorn shot wide when clean through on goal.

To have an average side come and completely nullify anything we had to offer in terms of threat without breaking sweat was galling, depressing and embarrassing in large and equal measures.

Manager Chris Coleman was pretty brave to come out after the game and promise things will change.

He didn’t say he’ll try his best to improve it, or say he’s seen enough to suggest we can turn it around.

Sunderland supporters will hang on that word promise.

It’s a bold statement to make and will galvanise some

Hopefully it won’t end up being a noose around Coleman’s neck in the coming weeks, if things don’t improve.

Going back to the game itself, I feel that if Joel Asoro had taken his chance in the first half, we’d have gone on to win that game.

Asoro has definitely been the most effective of the youngsters recently forced into first-team action.

He’s grown from week to week and has had a positive influence in nearly every game he’s featured in so far.

Unfortunately, others have had their peaks and troughs.

Ethan Robson has had a couple of poor games in quick succession now, but there’s no way he should be a regular starter for us at the moment.

Jake Clarke-Salter struggled at Birmingham and was bullied, along with Tyas Browning. Browning was quite poor again on Saturday too.

There were fair question marks over the decision to field Billy Jones at centre-back.

Jones has had a shocking season and that continued on Saturday when he was the worst player on the pitch.

He just wasn’t at it and, personally, I would’ve taken him off at half-time, gone to a back four and brought LuaLua or Aiden McGeady on in his place.

I like the back three, but it’s getting to the stage now where we need to start scoring goals and the best source may be from players like McGeady, even though they can blow hot and cold.

We need to start being more aggressive in all areas of the pitch, otherwise we’ll be continually swatted away until we land uncomfortably in League One.

* The Wise Men Say podcast is available from every Monday, with SAFC debate from a variety of guests and post-match reaction. You can stream it direct from wisemensay.co.uk or subscribe to it on iTunes