Team Focus: Have Sunderland Actually Improved Under Poyet?

The nightmare run is over and Sunderland can perhaps, at last, begin to contemplate a brighter future. After facing Fulham on the opening day of the season – a game they lost after conceding to the only corner Fulham had – their next seven home games were against Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. Even for a side in the peak of form it was always going to be difficult to play a putative top six and the derby back-to-back.

Sunderland now have 11 home games against teams they might have a reasonable chance of beating – with the possible exception of Everton if they play like they did at Old Trafford and the Emirates – and that should offer some sense of comfort. After all, disastrous as this season has been at times, Sunderland are only actually three points worse off in a comparison to equivalent fixtures from last season. If they could win at West Ham on Saturday and then beat Norwich at home on December 21 – the fixture that feels season-defining – they’d be better off than last season and might even be out of the bottom three.

And while nobody could seriously dispute that on Saturday they were outplayed in the second half by Tottenham, who hit the woodwork twice, they did in that game rack up their fifth own goal of the season and were denied a clear penalty for handball for the second Saturday running. Their luck has to change soon.

Yet what’s striking, particularly given the perception that things have picked up since Gus Poyet replaced Paolo Di Canio – and he has won seven points from eight games as opposed to one from five this season under Di Canio – is how similar every key metric is when his eight games are compared to Di Canio’s twelve (stretching back into last season). In fact, worryingly, many are poorer now than they were under Di Canio – although, of course, it must be remembered that this is an exceptionally small sample size.

Under Di Canio, Sunderland scored 0.92 goals per game and conceded 1.83 in picking up an average of 0.75 points per game, while under Poyet they have scored 0.88 goals per game while conceding 1.75, picking up an average of 0.88 points per game. That – just – gives the edge to Poyet.

Shots per game have gone down, from 10.8 to 8.6, the lowest figure in the Premier League, but shooting accuracy has gone up, from 24% on target to 27.5%. Perhaps that scores them about equal, but the figures are atrocious whatever: only Hull get fewer shots on target than Sunderland under Poyet – which is as much down to forwards being forced to attempt hurried or speculative efforts because of inadequate build-up as it is any necessary failing on their part.

Pass accuracy has improved slightly under Poyet – up from 74.2% to 77% - and they are attempting more passes: 375 per game against 313, although again the base was very low. Average possession has risen accordingly, from 40.5% to 42.8%. That figure of 375 still places them 18th of the 20 Premier League teams. Crossing, though, remains a major area of concern: despite having in Steven Fletcher and Jozy Altidore two fine headers of a ball, Sunderland attempt just 16.5 crosses per game under Poyet, ahead only of Newcastle, down from 19.6 under Di Canio. More alarmingly, cross accuracy has also dropped, from 20.4% to 12.9%, by some way the worst figure in the division – Hull are second worst, on 18.4%.

The most startling drop off is in the number of tackles made per game, from 22.4 under Di Canio to 17.3 under Poyet. It’s true that the more passes a side makes the fewer tackles it should need to make, but still, a fall from the third highest figure to seventeenth highest seems odd. After all, it’s not as though Sunderland aren’t committed: fouls committed have fallen only from 11.4 to 11.1. The explanation, perhaps, is that Poyet prefers his sides to sit off slightly. More worrying is that their shots conceded have also increased from 16.1 under Di Canio, the fifth worst, to 18.8, the second worst.

It may simply be that the number of tough home games has skewed things for Poyet, and that those figures will look more favourable in a month’s time. They need to: at the moment they look doomed and the underlying figures give little reason for encouragement.

Have things improved at Sunderland under Gus Poyet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below