IN many respects a few of Dick Advocaat’s first few words after deciding to quit Sunderland in October would subsequently have a major bearing on keeping Sunderland up.

“Our squad was simply not good enough,” the 68-year-old former Holland coach uttered after returning home after leaving the Stadium of Light.

“The club knew we had to strengthen but the chairman (Ellis Short) never told me how much we could spend. The struggle against relegation is not my cup of tea. It was time for someone else to take over. I became negative and didn’t feel like myself.”

Advocaat was persuaded to stay on after surprisingly getting the taste for a fight after last season’s end of season battle to beat the drop. He had tears in his eyes at Arsenal on that midweek night when Sunderland stayed up under his initial, short term watch.

The problem, though, was that he didn’t know how to deal with it at the start of this season when, after a full summer and pre-season in charge, the results were his fault. He can point to the director of football model which has since been scrapped, but he knew what he was letting himself in for.

When his only win from the opening nine matches of the season was a topsy-turvy 6-3 win over lower league Exeter City in the Capital One Cup, he had decided his time was up; he could see no way of stopping Sunderland’s alarming slide towards the Championship – again.

Step forward Sam Allardyce. After a few weeks of trying a few things – and an early boost of defeating Newcastle on Wearside – he realised playing one of the Premier League’s most predatory goalscorers as a striker rather than a winger would be the way forward.

Jermain Defoe would then go on to score 13 more goals – on top of the two he hit at the beginning of the campaign - in the league under Allardyce to eventually lead Sunderland to Premier League safety at Newcastle United’s expense.

Playing Defoe as a winger was one of Advocaat’s biggest mistakes and then, after that, Allardyce’s work in the January transfer window prove absolutely crucial.

Having outlined a wish to prove his Dutch predecessor wrong in his first week in charge, his first pieces of transfer business proved absolutely crucial too.

And, typical of an experienced boss who has enjoyed huge success in the foreign market over the last 15 years, Allardyce pulled off a masterstroke in doing what he had to do to keep Sunderland in the top-flight.

Jan Kirchhoff’s introduction to the Sunderland midfield in front of the back four was one of the best bits of business ever carried out by Sunderland. A snip at £750,000 from Bayern Munich, the German’s class in possession has shone through since a nightmare debut as a substitute defender at Tottenham in mid-January.

The two imports from the French league Bordeaux’s Wahbi Khazri and Lorient’s Lamine Kone – showed why Allardyce was so keen for Ellis Short to spend a combined £14m on them at such a late stage of the season.

Kharzri’s presence on the wing and delivery from set pieces caused problems and added something extra, while Kone’s excellent, powerful and uncompromising approach to defending brought the best out of side-kick Younes Kaboul, DeAndre Yedlin and Patrick van Aanholt.

Since that defeat at Tottenham, when the new boys were on show, Sunderland only lost three further matches against Manchester City, at West Ham and against champions Leicester City; that was during a run of 15 matches.

The problem was that they were drawing too many games even though they had shown greater resilience and improvements in performance.

But, like they have so often in previous campaigns, when it mattered Sunderland came good by following up the defeat to Leicester with three wins from their next five matches; including the back-to-back successes over Chelsea and Everton which kept them in the Premier League.

Sunderland weren’t good enough to stay up, claimed Dick Advocaat. Sam Allardyce, quite rightly, had other ideas. And Short, after his timely and ideal appointment, can surely look to a brighter future under his watch.

By PAUL FRASER

Played 40

Won 10

Drawn 11

Lost 19

Win percentage: 25%

Moment of the season: Jermain Defoe’s winner against Chelsea last weekend coincided with an incredible atmosphere inside the Stadium of Light.

Goal of the season: Fabio Borini’s brilliant last minute equaliser against Crystal Palace on March 1 ensured Sunderland did not lost back-to-back games.

Miss of the season: Adam Johnson – what a waste of a career after being sentenced to jail for getting involved with a school girl.

Player of the season: Jermain Defoe – without his goals Sunderland would have been down weeks ago, although Jan Kirchhoff and Lamine Kone ran him close.