What price experience? How Sunderland's ebb and flow reveals the true nature of success

The Lads have been tested - they will not be found wanting.

It's something of a misnomer to say that Sunderland's modest haul of points in recent days can be directly attributed to a lack of striking options. Certainly, it fits neatly into the mould of essential football; a team must simply score more goals than the opposition in order to win the game, and in so doing emerge with more points. 

This is grounded in truth but oversimplicity can lead to a misappropriation of blame. Worry too much about one glaring issue and you may easily overlook the minutiae that form the overarching problem, or even mask the solution.

Plenty has been said about the forced absence of Sunderland talisman Ross Stewart and, until very recently, his comrade Ellis Simms, so I needn't say more on the matter. That is what it is and everyone has their opinion on why and how it came about, rightly or wrongly. Personally I put it down to dumb luck, but there you go.

The fact is that when a squad is hit with injury it’s still a squad, for better or worse. It’s still loaded with professional footballers and the aim of the game doesn’t change – it just becomes more complex. 

The manner in which that squad have to go about their individual and collective jobs becomes more convoluted, particularly in the instance of a lack of target men; midfielders have more pressure put on them while their opposing defenders gain an upper hand; wingers have greater defensive demands and so expend more stamina and have fewer chances; defenders bear a greater brunt of attacks and so as a whole the team has much less time to build from the back with anything resembling composure. 

And let’s not forget the gaffers proximity to a general heart attack on a minute-by-minute basis whilst overseeing the tempestuous beast that is Sunderland. An unenviable job I'm sure we can agree.

Losing patience with a team in this situation then tends to ignore the finer points of the game itself. Take the template of set pieces as an example: it’s a very simple formula and all footballers spend huge amounts of time practicing it, but when the ball is struck a fraction of an inch off the mark or a player’s movement comes a fraction too late, all those best laid plans come to nothing. 

Ostensibly it’s as simple as putting the ball into space and getting the slightest touch on it to direct it goalward, yet the factors involved in the success of a set piece are so myriad and unpredictable that it becomes a matter of luck as much as a matter of intent. This isn’t to say that simple factors (height, speed, awareness) don’t contribute massively to the outcome, but rather that the outcome isn’t merely defined by simple factors. In this sense the team’s ability to achieve is not governed by basic notions of what *should* happen. The algorithm isn't just a case of X + Y = Z.

It’s in and between the lines that a team can find success in the face of adversity, because struggle against adversity breeds accomplishment. Is there anyone involved directly or indirectly with Sunderland AFC that wouldn’t be chuffed to bits with a lossless streak and maximum points of the board? Of course not, but running these lads through the mill together in difficult and taxing scenarios like those they’ve faced in the last two months is as much a boon to their development as any amount of time on the training pitch. 

A confidence that comes purely from success and nothing else is a false confidence, and that’s something we should fear as much as any losing streak, because without the experience gained from a realistic challenge at any level, true resolve and progress cannot be measured.

Better, then, to take the positives closer to heart than the negatives of the games we've come away from without maximum points. Better to look between those lines and find the pattern that emerges: one of marked progression in a dozen areas, and the bearing with which these men can carry themselves having waded through treacle to take a point against good opposition. 

When a team gains their experience through adversity they double its value. They become closer as a unit; they learn to read and predict and trust one another. As a result, the Sunderland that teams have faced in the opening half of this season will not be the Sunderland they face as the campaign matures, because they mature with it. 

In a just world, we will all soon look back on our time without a single dedicated striker with a newfound respect for what was done in spite of the odds being weighed against the team. When the season is done and dusted I'm confident that rather than booting off about points dropped we'll be able to see the value in what we gained.

The term “baptism by fire” is often used in footballing terms - as if the last few years weren’t fiery enough - and I think that we’ve really witnessed the truth of that in the opening salvoes of the season. 

Hopefully, in true romantic form, though hearts may be temporarily broken, lasting camaraderie can be forged and a spirit of true unity and purpose can be allowed to ultimately shine through, because by the time the adversity subsides this won’t simply be a group of footballers paid to pass the ball to one another. It will be a team that knows its own complexity and the requirements and demands placed upon it. 

Not only will they gain a greater capacity to succeed, but they may come to know the honest price of that success.