Sbragia left with balancing act as travellers return

Apr 4 2009 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

Air miles will be as important a factor in picking Sunderland’s team today as goals, saves and assists. Stuart Rayner speaks to Ricky Sbragia about the balancing act facing him

IT is easy to see why Ricky Sbragia’s Christmas appointment as Sunderland’s new manager was welcomed so warmly by his players.

Some of the Scot’s predecessors may have kept their squad at arm’s length, treating them like naughty schoolboys, but Sbragia takes the opposite approach. Even when his players act like children, he tries to treat them as grown-ups.

It is a response which will be put to the test at West Ham United this afternoon. Honesty, Sbragia believes, is the best policy. He is about to find out how much he can trust his players.

For all Premier League clubs, this weekend’s selections will be about more than simply moulding as many in-form players as possible into a balanced and cohesive unit. Football men like Sbragia must judge how draining a week’s travel has been on players, many of whom he saw yesterday for the first time in nearly a fortnight.

This week Sunderland’s squad has been scattered across the globe from Tennessee to Tirana playing World Cup qualifiers. Over the past 48 hours they have made their way back in dribs and drabs. Some, such as the recalled Scotland goalkeeper Craig Gordon, will be revitalised. Others, including the Trinidad and Tobago contingent, will be demoralised. More still, like Northern Ireland’s George McCartney, will be injured. All of them could be plain tired – not so much from playing a couple of football matches in the space of a week, but from travelling huge distances to do so. What Sbragia must do now is decide which ones are too physically and/or mentally exhausted to produce their best in a potentially pivotal encounter at Upton Park this afternoon, and who might have enough adrenalin to get through it.

“At the end of the day, they ask us to treat them like adults, so we ask them like adults,” says a manager who has also had to deal with the fall-out from Djibril Cissé’s arrest this week. “We ask them how they’re feeling.

“We’re aware of the journeys they’ve been on, the flights. At the end of the day we’ll ask them if they’re 100%, if they’re OK. But there’s other things on our minds as well. I’ve got a nucleus of 12 players here who have not travelled and have trained, we’ve rested them up and they look fine. It’s just a case now of trying to get that balance between playing one or two (internationals) but keeping the nucleus of players we’ve got here because they’re fresh-legged.”

Cissé, Nyron Nosworthy, Phil Bardsley, Dean Whitehead, Steed Malbranque, Kieran Richardson, Daryl Murphy, Danny Collins, Grant Leadbitter, Andy Reid, Anton Ferdinand and Calum Davenport (ineligible today) make up Sbragia’s “core”. But in Premier League terms it is an embarrassment of riches. Their opponents, West Ham, have seen Carlton Cole added to their list of lengthy attacking absentees for six weeks after aggravated a groin problem in an England friendly, January signing Savio played for Germany Under-20s shortly after returning from a knee problem, Radoslav Kovac picked up a thigh knock playing for the Czech Republic, and Lucas Neill spent April Fool’s Day in Sydney in a World Cup qualifier.

International duty can work to some players’ advantage, however. Gordon’s morale has been boosted by reclaiming Scotland’s number one jersey in midweek. That, and his shorter journey time, might earn him a recall over Hungarian Márton Fülöp, who only returned yesterday, but other changes could also be afoot. “I might have to make a decision just to change it,” admits Sbragia. “The results have not been great, to be honest with you.

“I was thinking about possibly changing the defence but that’s gone a little bit (due to the lack of alternatives available). We’ve got Kieran coming back in, Djib’s trained the last couple of weeks and Murph’s done the same.

“I didn’t see Kenwyne (Jones) and Carlos (Edwards) until 2 o’clock on Friday. We actually flew them into London rather than coming here, then travelling. We had a masseur there looking after them for their recovery, making sure they got their food and were hydrated. Then you just ask them the question. You might just look at them, see how their body language is, and ask the masseur.

“You have to give them more time after the game. You just ask them, ‘Right, give us 90 minutes or 70 minutes and we’ll deal with the situation then, you can rest after the game’. But they have to be honest. The stats will show that if they’re not, the heart monitors will show exactly where they are – although it’ll be too late then!

“You have to just speak to them and see how they are.”