Sunderland’s decade in the top flight came to a logical end after the Black Cats experienced a season in hell that saw them finishing bottom off the table and 16 points adrift from safety. It all started going wrong even before the season started when coach Sam Allardyce resigned to take charge of England. The Board brought in David Moyes, but the new gaffer failed miserably when buying recruits in August and January, plus after just two rounds he said publically that his players were not good enough to avoid relegation.
These comments and the generally poor form of pretty much everyone saw Sunderland starting the campaign with just two points after ten rounds and the fact that none of those Moyes brought in played well put serious pressure on everyone. The gaffer might argue that pretty much throughout the entire campaign he was missing at least half a dozen players through injuries, but the truth was that he never shopped smart and also his early comments disheartened the squad.
Some slim hope of survival was restored in November and December when four wins in seven rounds saw Sunderland exiting the bottom three for a week just before Christmas. This good run was achieved because Defoe continued to score goals despite the lack of support, but the veteran striker was getting more and more frustrated and also his form dropped dramatically come February. By that point Sunderland still had hope, only because Defoe scored 14 goals in the opening 24 rounds, but the striker found the back of the net only one more time in the remaining matches and after going eight consecutive games without a goal scored between mid-February and mid-April their destiny was sealed. Another awful stretch of two points won from eleven games in this period doomed Sunderland to relegation and the last few weeks of the campaign were a sad story.
Moyes resigned at the end of the campaign, but now many think that the Black Cats will find it hard to bounce back up straight away.
