Sunderland have been abysmal but Simon Grayson is no stranger to a slow start.
Sunderland have endured a truly horrendous start to life in the Championship under manager Simon Grayson.
The former Preston boss has the Black Cats sitting second from bottom in the table after 11 games and already the pressure is on Grayson to turn things around.
The good news is that he just might.
Sunderland fans will be worried about such a sluggish start but Grayson might be a bit more relaxed – and he has good reason to be. He’s well used to his sides not racing out of the traps.
After 11 games in the 2015-16 season, Preston only had eight points – one more than the Wearside outfit this time around – but the Lilywhites battled back and were only six points adrift of the playoff spots with seven games to go, before finishing 11th.
At the same stage last season, the Lancashire side only had 13 points out of a possible 33 and yet Grayson’s troops were five points adrift of the top six come April, before finishing 11th once again.
For whatever reason, the former Leeds boss doesn’t tend to get much out of his troops for the first quarter of the campaign but recent history has proven that they respond to his ideas eventually.
At Sunderland he has a better squad than he did at Deepdale – on paper at least – so Black Cats fans shouldn’t be overly pessimistic even though results suggest otherwise.
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