One Sunderland star really ‘couldn’t impact the game’ during yesterday’s defeat to Blackburn Rovers.
Sunderland were unable to follow up the win over Cardiff City with another three points, and were instead thrashed by Blackburn in their own backyard.
The Black Cats’ defence remained the same after picking up a clean sheet against the Bluebirds, while Patrick Roberts was brought in for his first start in seven weeks.
A number of mistakes cost the hosts as John Eustace’s side breezed past them to climb up to 17th in the Championship table.
Mike Dodds claimed the performance was ‘completely unacceptable’ and couldn’t give one player any credit, though there was perhaps one man whose display stood out as particularly poor.
Patrick Roberts’ underwhelming return
Patrick Roberts was thrust in at the deep end after a spell on the sidelines, and you could certainly tell he was extremely rusty.
The winger was at fault for Blackburn’s opener as he gave the ball away, while he really struggled to make anything happen before he was replaced inside an hour.
Sunderland Echo journalistPhil Smith handed Roberts a 3 rating, writing: “Came straight back into the starting XI having not played since early February and in truth that lack of match sharpness showed. Slipped in possession in the build up for Blackburn’s opener and couldn’t impact the game going forward, losing the ball too often.”
Roberts’ match stats were absolutely abysmal. The 27-year-old had zero shots, zero crosses and zero dribbles, while he managed one key pass.
The attacker made zero headers, lost the ball eleven times and also committed one foul.
He was also noticeably poor tracking back too – making zero clearances, blocks, interceptions or tackles.
Who was to blame yesterday?
Roberts has had a rather underwhelming season and hasn’t scored a goal in almost a year, but this was terrible even by his standards this term. However, I’m not sure the blame entirely lies with him.
The forward wasn’t given any minutes against Cardiff and hasn’t featured for the U21s either, yet he was thrown in straight from the start yesterday.
It was very clear he wasn’t quite ready and Mike Dodds has to take some blame for chucking him in.
What was even more of a bizarre decision was bringing Jack Clarke on though, who obviously wasn’t fully fit either and could have easily done with a longer rest given that we were already 4-0 down when he was substituted on.
It is another list of poor decisions from Dodds and it is becoming glaringly obvious that he is way out of his depth. However, it doesn’t help when players like Patrick Roberts and Pierre Ekwah are gifting the opposition goals like they did yesterday.