Sunderland have made an awful start to the season.
Former player and current pundit Niall Quinn says Sunderland’s players look lost trying to play a possession game under current manager David Moyes, Sky Sports reports.
The Black Cats preserved their Premier League status by the skin of their teeth last season, climbing out of the relegation zone with only a matter of games remaining as Sam Allardyce rejouvenated the side.
With Allardyce leaving Sunderland for the vacant England job in the summer, the Wearside club named Moyes as his successor but the transition has not gone smoothly at all.
Under Moyes’ tenure, Sunderland are on a run of just two draws in ten league matches with their latest encounter with Arsenal ending in a 4-1 defeat at the Stadium of Light.
Former player Quinn says Moyes needs to change his tactics, as at present the players look lost trying to play a possession-based style rather than the direct football they succeeded with last term.
“I think they need to revert back to the type of game Sam Allardyce had going on here where they had a more direct game and the players looked comfortable,” Quinn told Sky Sports.
“They looked lost at times trying to do the passing and movement. The way it’s going, it feels like death by a thousand cuts the way they are playing.
“They’ve got to do something radical and different now and the fans would respond to a more direct approach. I just don’t think they are confident enough to play this passing game that David Moyes wants them to play.”
No team in Premier League history has recorded as few as two points from their opening ten league games, not even Derby County who ended up with a record low of 11 points in the 2007/08 campaign.
The Black Cats should have enough about them to achieve more than that particular total, but playing as they are they look sure-fire favourites for the drop in a similar vein to Aston Villa last year.
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