Sunderland Stats: Did any players do themselves any favours in disappointing Cardiff defeat?

It was a grim afternoon for Sunderland as they lost 1-0 to Cardiff, but the statistics from players' individual performances make interesting reading.

Sunderland were rubbish against Cardiff. Nobody is going to need statistics to tell them that.

However, we have drilled down into the data from the game to pick out some key metrics for the players’ individual performances on the day.

Ellis Simms’ uninspiring return

Tony Mowbray said just a week or so ago that Ellis Simms wouldn’t be ready to start matches for Sunderland until after the World Cup break, yet he was back leading the line in this one. I suspect we were all very happy to see it, too.

Sadly, though, it didn’t really work out, and perhaps Mowbray should have trusted his first instinct as Simms didn’t really look ready at all. Whether that was due to general fitness after a while out or he was just mentally playing withing himself to protect against a recurrence of the problem, we don’t know. What we do know, though, is he was wholly ineffective.

Simms managed to complete just six passes in the 73 minutes he was on the field, a success rate of only 50%. That’s just not going to cut it. Sunderland have plenty of individual attacking talent, but if the centre forward is surrendering possession like that, it’s always going to be tough for them to impact the match.

Abdoullah Ba struggled

There is no question that Abdoullah Ba has impressed an awful lot from the bench since his summer move and he definitely earned a start. I, like most, was happy to see him get his chance.

He didn’t really make the most of it, though. In fact, he seemed largely overwhelmed by it at times.

Ba, like Simms, really struggled to keep possession (15/23 passes – 65%) and there were a couple of very poor giveaways from the teenager at times. He also failed to make a single tackle in the 57 minutes he was on the pitch, despite a couple of recoveries of possession.

The stats probably paint an unkinder picture of Ba’s performance than is fair, though. They don’t speak, for example, of his good defensive work following Dan Neil’s poor dispossession in the first half and how quickly he was to get back and make that a tougher chance for Cardiff than it should have been. Still, it’s a reminder of just how raw Ba is and how much patience will likely be required as we watch him develop. While we are on the topic of Dan Neil…

Dan Neil was much better than you’d think

It’s hard to look past that first half giveaway that should have cost Sunderland a goal. The fact that Neil turning into trouble on the ball in dangerous areas and being dispossessed is becoming a pretty regular occurrence makes it especially difficult to overlook.

That said, it’s important to not throw away the baby with the bathwater when it comes to Neil. Yes, he definitely has a weakness in his game there, but it would be unfair to allow that weakness to define him, especially when he has so many strengths to admire too.

From a statistical perspective, Neil had a solid afternoon against Cardiff. He was decent on the ball, completing 81% of his attempted 21 passes. Mind, it should be noted that only three of those got Sunderland into the final third, the same number as Ba produced, and that’s not really good enough for a central midfield player in a home match.

Defensively, though, Neil was very good. He had a team-leading seven recoveries, a tally no other Sunderland player could touch, and he was deceptively combative too. In fact, Mowbray spoke after the game about how he felt Sunderland failed to win enough duels, but Neil is the one player who is probably exempt from that criticism. He won eight ground duels in his 57 minutes and his only aerial duel too.

It can understandably be quite easy to forget just how young Neil is, and homegrown players often attract more criticism than others. He definitely needs to cut out the mistakes, but there is plenty to admire about what he is producing too.

Corry Evans and Alex Pritchard impact

It probably wouldn’t have been a surprise to see Corry Evans or Alex Pritchard rested for this one, but both of them dropping out was a bold move from Tony Mowbray that ultimately appears to have backfired.

It’s easy after the event, of course, and managers don’t get that luxury, although it looked quite obvious in the first half that their collective sheer knowhow and positional nous was a huge miss and it definitely felt odd that they remained on the bench for the start of the second half.

Both had an impact when they did come on. Evans from a defensive point of view is always good, and he made his usual interceptions, recoveries and won a tackle or two. However, his support for the man in possession is very underrated, particularly for a team who want to play out from the back.

He made 27 passes, which was more than Neil or Ba could manage in nearly twice as long on the pitch, and completed 26 of them.

Where Evans and Pritchard really made their impact, though, was in getting the ball into the final third. Between them, Evans (4) and Pritchard (8) got the ball to a Sunderland player in the final third 12 times. That is, again, twice as many as Ba and Neil produced.

There is an obvious caveat here in that Cardiff were dropping deeper by the time Evans and Pritchard came on as they had the lead. That does make it easier to get at them, but they were also forced back by the better quality on the ball from Sunderland that Evans and Pritchard offered.

Dennis Cirkin continues to impress

If there is a better full back in the Championship than Dennis Cirkin, I hope Premier League clubs who might be looking to strengthen in January know about him.

Cirkin, like everyone else in a Sunderland shirt against Cardiff, was not at his best, but he was still a remarkably dependable defensive presence.

Cardiff took him on and he generally got the better of them, winning six of his seven ground duels and both of his aerial contests. He also won all the tackles he attempted and made five recoveries during the match.

Cirkin even managed to be Sunderland’s most creative presence, creating a team-leading three chances. That said, ‘chance’ is a bit too much of a subjective term for my liking from a statistical point of view as it is always the quality of the chance that matters most, not the chance itself.

Still, on what was a pretty bleak day for anyone (Anthony Patterson aside) in a Sunderland shirt, Dennis Cirkin was a big positive. Again.

Statistics from fotmob.com