Fewer goals and points, rarer wins: Statistics prove Michael Beale has made Sunderland worse

Despite whatever excuses Michael Beale wants to offer, the statistics on his Sunderland performance make for bad reading.

Week by week, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to judge Michael Beale objectively. You have to acknowledge that. He is causing such an unprecedented level of bad feeling among Sunderland fans – on an actual weekly basis – that it’s hard not to allow that to colour your opinion.

This week, Beale has presided over two terrible performances, two awful results, a thrown away lead, and him appearing to publicly humiliate a hugely committed and popular player for no apparent reason.

Granted, he’s claimed the last one was just a misunderstanding, but the video footage was very damning and, frankly, he’s proven to be a difficult figure to trust so far.

WATCH: Petulant Sunderland boss Michael Beale ignores his own player during defeat

Even if you want to give him the benefit of any doubt on the Trai Hume incident, though, Beale has still had an awful week.

His communication has even improved of late, and yet he still manages to find was to antagonise, whether that’s through results, performances, strange tactical decisions or weird answers to questions. When he is that antagonistic, objectivity becomes a challenge.

And, like I said, it’s important that we acknowledge that. For me personally, it’s a constant challenge and I don’t mind admitting it. I was a Sunderland supporter long before I covered the club professionally and I’ll be a Sunderland supporter after I am finished in this profession too.

How, then, do you try to keep some objectivity in the debate? I suppose by looking at the statistics – and they are not good reading for Beale.

In fact, when you compare Sunderland’s league performance this season from before Beale was appointed to how it has been since, and the former Rangers boss has made Sunderland worse pretty much across the board.

We are not talking about the modern style statistics either, by the way. We are just going to look at the ones that actually matter – the ones that show in the league table.

	Before Beale	Under Beale
Win Percentage	45%	36%
Goals per game	1.45	1.18
Conceded per game	1.09	1.09
Points Per Game	1.5	1.27

The defensive record is identical, but everything else is worse. In short, he's added nothing and cost Sunderland a lot. It makes for quite damning reading in truth.

After all, Beale was appointed by Sunderland from a position of strength. It certainly wasn’t a case that he was taking over a struggling team. He took over a good one.

He was supposed to be an elite, next-level coach who would improve things even further. ‘Obsession with progression,’ and all that.

For him to provably make the team worse in every metric that matters, it’s going to be very difficult to get behind. 

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