Officially Confirmed: Sunderland have parted ways with Mike Dodds following series of poor results

Officially Confirmed: Sunderland have parted ways with Mike Dodds following series of poor results

Mike Dodds claimed that his Sunderland team did not deserve to lose, as their wretched run continued with a 1-0 loss to Watford at Vicarage Road.

Much of the first half was uneventful, but the Black Cats had the best two chances soon before the break, thanks to Chris Rigg and Trai Hume. Jack Clarke then wasted a pair of fantastic chances just after the break, and the visitors were punished when substitute Ryan Andrews completed a counterattack midway through the second half.

Sunderland generated nothing in the latter moments as they attempted to square the score, however Patrick Roberts squandered a good opportunity when substitute Luis Hemir found him in the area. The interim Sunderland manager claimed that he couldn’t be too harsh on his players despite their continued bad record, but added that it was a lesson in how ruthless they must be at the second-tier level.

“I’m really upset for the group and I’m really upset for the fans, whether it be those that travelled down or those in the North East,” Dodds said in a statement.

“That’s a game that we shouldn’t lose, let alone draw. As I was leaving the ground, some of their staff and players expressed similar sentiments. They claimed they’d gotten away with one. It’s a difficult pill to swallow, but as I told the guys, that’s football. They must recognise that they must use their chances; the game could have ended three or four goals to none. And then it’s a really terrible goal from our perspective to concede; they play into midfield far too easily – we haven’t put a glove on them, and they’ve broken through our defence. What I’d also say is that there was one moment in 90 minutes when I felt out of  possession we didn’t do what we should do. But it’s the Championship, they’re big moments and you can’t take your foot off the gas.

“They’re my two big disappointments, I think we’ve had four or five big chances – not half chances,” he went on to say.

“Jack has had a couple of chances; we have one at the ned with Pat and Hemir, and Riggy has an opportunity to improve. Trai had a wonderful chance, but the keeper smothered it; there were four or five off the top of my head. I can’t be too critical of the group; I was critical last week and after the Blackburn game, and rightfully so, but if I take the emotion out of the outcome and look solely at the performance, if we play that game ten times, we’ll win nine times.”

Dodds stated that enhancing the team’s productivity in the final third will require improvement in: “You can’t hide from the facts. We’re not surrendering many goals except from the Blackburn game and Southampton, which I can live with since we knew it was going to be a basketball game. But we’re not scoring, so I’m not going to sit here and try to spin the positives. What I will say is that at least today, we created significant chances, and they are big chances, not half chances. So it would be a nice outcome from today because that is something I could have stated after the Millwall game.

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