Safety first’s just fine, Sbragia style
Mar 6 2009 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal
IN the roller-coaster ride that is this season’s Premier League, there is no time to breath a sigh of relief.
One week a team can look out of the woods, the next they can be up to their eyeballs in the brown stuff. It is a lesson Sunderland are having drummed into them.
Manchester United will win the title. Chelsea, rejuvenated by the arrival of Guus Hiddink will be second. Two from Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal will play in the Champions League qualifiers, the other joining Everton in the Uefa Cup. West Bromwich Albion will finish bottom. In between is anybody’s guess. Every week you can look at the table and think one club has enough points to be taken out of consideration for relegation, or persuade yourself that another should have enough quality to keep its head above water. The problem is, every week it seems to be different teams.
One week Manchester City look to be staring down the barrel, the next they play at home and, hey presto, all is well with the make- believe world they inhabit.
In such a climate, it is best not to think too far ahead. When the music stopped on Saturday night, Sunderland were closer to Everton in the placings than to Stoke City, sat in 18th. If Kenwyne Jones had put away a very presentable third-minute chance at Anfield on Tuesday, they could be puffing on their metaphorical cigars by now, dreaming of Intertoto Cup adventures in cities they would not have a snowflake’s chance in hell of finding on the map. Instead the buffer zone is down to three teams. But beat Tottenham Hotspur tomorrow, and they will be in the top half. In such boom and bust times, keeping a steady head is the key. Fortunately for the Black Cats, manager Ricky Sbragia has the personality for such a situation.
Previous Sunderland bosses of the none-too-distant past (mentioning no Keanes) might have reacted to the Liverpool defeat by bombing Jones for his weak shot and benching Márton Fülöp for an equally calamitous cock-up at the other end.
One or two others would probably have gone with them.
Keane was volatile and exciting, Sbragia safe and dull. And safety will do nicely at the Stadium of Light right now.
