It's a delicate issue for me

On the one hand, it is true, the evidence from the last 18 months is not good for Worthington. And the achievements of Wigan and West Ham are not helping his case. However - Sunderland's are! We all knew when we got promoted if we survived we'd have had a good season. Mistakes were made, and the closeness to achieving survival makes the case against Worthington more severe, as if the mistakes hadn't been made we would've survived.

However, low expecations last season meant whatever the outcome, Worthington was always safe. After all, he had given us 3.5 good seasons in the Championships - against the odds really.

In the first season he saved us from the drop. Transformed the team, and got the best out of a solid side and somehow got us into the playoff final - a fantastic adventure - and one of the best seasons for me ever. The next season we came close by we just didn't have the quality in the end. Then we splashed the cash and stormed to the title in a division which quite frankly a dozen teams could've won at the start of the season.

So we come to this season. And yes it has been a BIG dissapointment. We were favourites. But Worthington screwed up in the summer - by signing s**te. He clearly had no money to spend (for whatever reason).

The thing is, on paper, we've still arguably got a better team (apart from RB) than the one we were promoted with (accepting that the one's still here, Huckerby, Drury, Fleming, Green and McKenzie are still the same players despite their performances not being to the same level as before), but the squad as a whole are not performing.

For me, Worthington should be given one last season, to prove he can get the best out of a group of players like he's proven in the past. But he must solve some long term problems for me, or he will never succeed.

1. He must sort out the right hand side (a RB and RM).
2. Sort out the Huckerby situation. IS he a liability - or can he still do it for us?
3. He must get us back to being a solid team, hard to beat. That means two banks of 4 in front of Green.
4. If he adds quality to a solid team - then the play offs are the minimum in this division.

Posted By: Poirot, Feb 7, 22:56:26