It is a 142-year footballing rivalry steeped in a centuries-old conflict dating back to political differences during the English Civil War. But maybe Sunderland and Newcastle can find some common ground over their decision to essentially forfeit games when their why aye talisman is unavailable.
It feels a bit hypocritical of Regis Le Bris to implore Sunderland to not “search for excuses because it should be too easy to say that Granit wasn’t here with us,” considering he overthought Xhaka’s absence so thoroughly as to change the team’s shape while deploying Trai Hume in one of the more curious and botched roles of any Premier League player this season against West Ham.
A half-time triple substitution suggests the manager panicked as much as anyone without his Swiss safety blanket.
The loss of any team’s best and most important player will naturally cause them to struggle. But this is also not an isolated case for a side failing to establish any sort of rhythm, belief or consistency away.
On the road only Wolves (five) have scored fewer than Sunderland’s six goals, Burnley (18.4) are alone in conceding more shots per game (16.6), and just Brentford (24 to 9) have a greater disparity in terms of points won at home compared to elsewhere (23 to 10 for Sunderland).
That proud unbeaten record at the Stadium of Light might be enough alone to keep Sunderland up. It also might have to be unless Le Bris finds a more sustainable approach away from the fortress.
And he might want to send some notes 15 miles up the A1 to compare.
As Eddie Howe said: “We can’t rely on one player. We do have to find a way of winning without him.”
But in nine attempts across four years they have summarily failed. Their record in Premier League matches Bruno Guimaraes has not featured in whatsoever since he joined is P9 W0 D5 L4 F4 A11.
Those goals were scored by Miguel Almiron, Callum Wilson, Alexander Isak and Allan Saint-Maximin. Not a single current Newcastle player has scored in a match Guimaraes has not featured in since January 2022.
Guimaraes has played 18 through balls this season and his closest team-mate is Jacob Murphy on four. Howe specifically noted how the loss of “his forward thinking, he always wants to pass forward, he’s always looking for a creative pass” was “a big miss”, but it is therefore damning that he simply put someone else there in the same shape and system and expected similar results.
Lewis Miley continued his good form and Sandro Tonali’s performance was positive enough, but they could not replicate Guimaraes’ impact against Aston Villa and it showed.
Howe had the chance to change formation to support Yoane Wissa and reduce the onus on his wide forwards but opted not to. Newcastle should not play like Guimaraes is there when he isn’t.
Le Bris went too far in trying to solve an equation without his biggest number, while Howe did not go quite far enough. As they perhaps should have done when the Royalists and Parliamentarians clashed in the 1600s, Newcastle and Sunderland ought to meet somewhere in the middle.
