IT is quite rightly billed as the biggest game in the North-East footballing calendar, but it is hard to remember a Wear-Tyne derby that has been less eagerly anticipated than the one that will take place on Sunday afternoon.

Derbies are strange beasts at the best of times, evoking a tumultuous mix of tribal excitement, nervous anticipation and gut-churning fear at the thought of what might go wrong. They’re invariably the games where, from a supporters’ point of view at least, not losing is infinitely more important than winning.

Getting out with a degree of dignity intact is often the height of ambition, but even so, the mood music ahead of Sunday’s Stadium of Light showdown is notably downbeat. On either side of the divide, it is hard to find anyone who is enthused at the prospect of locking horns with the auld enemy. Fear of failure is trumping any talk of triumphal ambition.

Sadly, that says much about the state of things in the North-East, or at least the significant part of it that obsesses about events on the Tyne and Wear. Another season of collective upheaval and failure; another year in which the showpiece fixture is something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Surely, at some stage, we can start talking about success instead of celebrating survival.

Newcastle have already pretty much secured that survival, with a ten-point gap separating them from the bottom three. Even so, the potential for weekend embarrassment remains huge.

Prior to last December, Sunderland had never previously enjoyed four successive derby wins over Newcastle, so the prospect of the figure becoming five understandably fills the black-and-white hordes with dread.

What is it about this group of players and derby disaster? The hope, from a Magpies perspective, is that recent failings owed much to the inadequacies of Alan Pardew and his failure to translate the importance of the derby to a squad that has repeatedly been unable to lift itself for its biggest game.

John Carver, with his Geordie upbringing and tales of sitting alongside Sir Bobby, should right that wrong, but it still requires a leap of faith to conclude that Newcastle’s players will swarm all over Sunderland in two days time and run amok.

The Northern Echo:

The Magpies were desperate in their most recent away game at Everton, a 3-0 defeat that carried all the hallmarks of a side that had already clocked off for the summer break. There were signs of life in the second half of the subsequent 2-1 home defeat to Arsenal, but they were stilted and still brought no tangible reward.

With Papiss Cisse and Fabricio Coloccini both senselessly suspended, and Mehdi Abeid and Rolando Aarons probably the only senior players ready to return, Newcastle’s squad continues to look threadbare.

Will the fight be there when the atmosphere is at its most intense? And even if it is, will the requisite talent be accompanying it to make any difference.

Newcastle’s wretched derby run has to end sometime, and the fans in the away end will be clinging to the hope that Sunderland’s time is up. Given that the Magpies have won just one of their last nine away matches however, conceding three or more goals in four of those games, confidence will hardly be overflowing.

Perhaps the decisive factor will be that Sunderland are arguably in an even bigger mess. As bad as Newcastle have been on their travels, the Black Cats have been even worse at home. Mind you, given that they’ve only claimed four league wins all season, their failings have hardly been confined to the Stadium of Light.

While Newcastle fans are fearful of an awful derby run continuing, Sunderland supporters are haunted by the memory of 2006, when a 4-1 April home defeat to Newcastle represented the low point of a season that ended with their club in the Championship.

Going down this time around would be devastating. If Newcastle were to be the club that hastened the demise, things would feel a whole lot worse.

With Burnley hosting Tottenham in Sunday’s early-afternoon kick-off, it is quite conceivable that Sunderland could be in the bottom three by the time derby hostilities are renewed. They have only been in the relegation zone once this season, in the wake of October’s 2-0 home defeat to Arsenal, so to find themselves back there at such a crucial stage of the campaign would represent a powerful psychological blow.

It would be no more than Sunderland deserve though, given the extent of their struggles. They have only won once in the league since December’s dramatic denouement at St James’, a run of 13 matches that has featured eight defeats.

The Northern Echo: Image from PictureGalleryModule_ID:3186454

Is it really conceivable to imagine the sudden appearance of some black-and-white shirted opposition turning such a run on its head?

It might be. Most of Sunderland’s recent derby wins have been sandwiched by some abject performances on either side of the fixture with Newcastle, and the mental advantage derived from a run of four successive derby victories should be huge.

Sunderland’s players know how to win this game, and for all that Dick Advocaat’s first match at West Ham ended in a 1-0 defeat, there were signs of a positive response to the Dutchman’s arrival.

Advocaat’s team selection on Sunday is also likely to be positive, with Jermain Defoe, Connor Wickham and Steven Fletcher all primed to start. As controversial as it would be, don’t rule out a return to the starting line-up for December’s hero, Adam Johnson.

Sunderland’s squad contains some match winners, but then it’s fair to point out that they haven’t exactly been winning many matches this season. Which can also be said, of course, about Newcastle.

It all adds up to very little, and that’s probably the most fitting thing that can be said ahead of Sunday’s showdown. It’s the biggest game of the season, but also one that can’t be finished quickly enough. May the least worst side win...