2022 Sunderland signing has gotten worse since Mike Dodds replaced Michael Beale

Sunderland, who are presently in 12th place in the Championship standings, have not won in their previous seven games.

Last Saturday, Sunderland’s hard-fought 0-0 draw with QPR in the Championship

ended a run of six successive losses for the team.

The Black Cats relied on goalie Anthony Patterson to keep them in the game that day because they had 0 shots on goal.

 

as the game, Mike Dodds complimented the 23-year-old Patterson, calling him

“unbelievable,” as he assisted in Dodds’ first point since taking over as temporary manager.

 

After Michael Beale was fired by Sunderland last month, he took over, and the team hasn’t won since.

Sunderland under Mike Dodds

Beale lost his final two games in charge, arguably setting the tone for the four defeats that followed.

Dodds made some changes to the shape and to the XI but his changes have had mixed results, largely seen in the poor first half display of the defeat vs Swansea City in February.

Injuries haven’t helped Dodds; Jack Clarke is currently injured and so too are

several other first-team players, including Patrick Roberts and Nazariy

Rusyn who is sidelined for what could be a significant period of time.

Perhaps none more so than Abdoullah Ba, a number of players have fallen short

of expectations this season and a number of others have suffered a decline in form since Beale’s arrival.

Abdoullah Ba’s 2023/24 season so far

The 2022 signing from Le Havre has shown glimpses of brilliance since he arrived at the club, and this season he looked to have really stepped up.

He’s scored three and assisted four in 34 Championship outings for the Black Cats and shone in games against Stoke City and Watford much earlier in the campaign.

However, Ba has not even gone close to filling the attacking gap left by Clarke after his injury. Consistency has frequently been his downfall.

 

Ba has been especially bad under Dodds, starting just three games and only finishing one of them. Ba has not contributed to any goals.

Pressure to blame for Ba’s poor form

Right now, these young Sunderland players are under a lot of pressure.

The point vs QPR is a good start on their road to recovery and their road to securing themselves another season in the second tier, but it’s certainly difficult.

With Clarke out, there is undoubtedly more pressure on Ba in particular to produce more, but it was always going to be tough to compete with the former Spurs player, who has 15 goals in the Championship this season.

 

Furthermore, Ba isn’t receiving assistance from players like Luis Hemir; it’s starting to emerge as a recurring theme that the Portuguese striker doesn’t put in the effort and doesn’t use his connections, which won’t be helpful for Ba on the wing.

 

Finally, there aren’t many leaders on the field for guys like Ba to look up to or try

to emulate when times are bad because there is a glaring lack of experience in

the first team, much alone on the field for Sunderland. draw motivation from.

 

Ba is still a talented player. Even so, great players frequently emerge from these extremely challenging periods of form, and he isn’t currently demonstrating that he can withstand the pressure.