Sunderland started the season with hopes of it being more successful after another miracle escape right at the end of the previous campaign. Gus Poyet was keen to build a squad in his own image in what was his first full pre-season with the Wearsiders but the transfer business was rather underwhelming, with constraints on the money that could be spent meaning that only a few players arrived. Jack Rodwell was the headline signing of the summer while Ricky Alvarez was brought in on from Inter in order to provide flair down the wings. But it was a pretty dour start of the season by the Black Cats and they failed to pick up a single win in the first six games of the season. They were still hard to beat and suffered a single loss in the first seven games. There would be a real disaster in waiting for Sunderland, however, as Southampton served them a thrashing for the ages in October, winning 8:1 in front of their fans in what was one of the most embarrassing performances in the history of the Wearside club. Poyet sought to solidify the defence and make the team even more stodgy as a result of this shocking loss. As a result, Sunderland became even more disappointing to watch but they were definitely proving a tough nut to crack. Only Manchester City beat them in a stretch of eight games until the festive period and the team also picked up a sweet last-minute win away at Newcastle. But there was little excitement on show and none of the attacking players was really proving his worth. A poor loss at the hands of Hull ended the good run of form and Sunderland went on to lose three games in a row in early 2015 as well, finding themselves in serious trouble at the bottom end of the table. Jermain Defoe arrived and was hailed as the immediate solution to the problems up front. Despite the odd decent showing, Sunderland remained a rather disappointing outfit and frictions between the prickly Poyet and the fans, media and players became more and more common. The latest low point was a meek 2:0 loss away at League One side, Bradford, in the FA Cup which further added to the sense of unease and the pressure. On the top of that, Adam Johnson was charged with serious allegations off the pitch which added to the turmoil in the entire team. It all reached a boiling point in an utterly inept and gutless 4:0 home loss at the hands of Aston Villa in March. Poyet was never going to survive such a wretched result and the club resorted to a late-season managerial change in bringing Dick Advocaat, the highly experienced Dutch manager who was tasked with saving Sunderland from calamitous relegation. He did steady the ship without doing anything special, steering the team to a huge 1:0 win over Newcastle, only their third home league win all season. There was more belief and determination about the team in these final few games and a scrappy but priceless 2:0 win away at Everton eventually proved the key result of their season. They managed to beat the drop with a week to spare and can look forward to another campaign in the top-flight next season. But there was little to savour from another testing last nine months and there is still lots of rebuilding to do for Advocaat, who performed a U-turn and is staying on as a manager after initially claiming that he would be leaving.
