Sunderland's Groundhog Day is over with shock Stadium of Light stat exposing key issue

At least the Sunderland fans will be spared the Groundhog Day interviews from Mike Dodds now the Championship season is finished.

It’s pretty incredible to think that under the club’s interim head coach, the team plunged downwards from a couple of points outside the play-offs to just six points from the relegation places. How can the Black Cats have possibly finished on the same points as Stoke City who were battling against the drop for most of the last three months?

It just shows you how far the club sunk. Fans could even be forgiven for calling for the reinstatement of the much-maligned Michael Beale as head coach given it was he who oversaw the last home win back on February 10. To think they’ve not won since then at the Stadium of Light is staggering in itself.

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The last six games saw Sunderland score one goal . . . in a 5-1 home defeat to Blackburn.

They came agonisingly close in their last game against Sheffield Wednesday when Jack Clarke hit the inside of a post in what is sure to be his last appearance. But the fact remains. They didn’t score.

Dodds has previously gone on record to say the performances have been unacceptable. He shifted the emphasis on that phrase slightly after the 2-0 home defeat to Sheffield Wednesday to say that “not giving the home fans something to cheer about next season will not be accepted".

It’s all just empty words.

Dodds went into his third tenure as interim/caretaker with the intention of seemingly not losing.

“We are going to try and nullify their strengths and expose the opposition’s weaknesses” was the buzz phrase. But his team, on the whole, did neither. All Sunderland did in the 13 matches under his charge is expose their own weaknesses while not utilising his own team’s strengths.

He played five at the back at home. He even said after one game he was “bored” with his team’s display. Well, imagine how the supporters felt having paid to watch it.

Not many people will be sorry to see the back of Dodds and time will tell if he stays on at the club. He comes across as a good guy but looked more and more flustered in front of the cameras after each passing game.

Some pundits reckoned he was out of his depth and it did look that way. Now we wait and see who the new head coach will be and what he has in store to make sure next season is a far more exciting one.