Players point to O'Neill for change in fortunes (From The Northern Echo)

Players point to O'Neill for change in fortunes

11:35am Monday 6th February 2012 in Sunderland AFC Match Reports By Richard Mason, Sports Writer/Sub-Editor

WHEN Martin O'Neill was unveiled as Sunderland's new manager at the end of November, a raft of his former players came forward to offer their opinions on the new man at the helm.

Asked specifically what the Northern Irishman brings to the table, they would be initially vague before answering: “He makes you feel like the best player in the world.”

That was the response of John Hartson, who scored 88 goals in 146 appearances for Celtic under O'Neill, and the answers of the likes of Michael Gray, Robbie Savage and Steve Claridge were much the same. Belief, simplicity, confidence.

In the Premier League, O'Neill has oversaw 10 matches for Sunderland, the Black Cats winning seven of them. Sunderland are the form team in the Premier League, with largely the same starting XI employed by former manager Steve Bruce.

And, ask a current Sunderland player what the Northern Irishman brings to the table, and you get the same answers that his former players provided.

Belief. Simplicity. Confidence.

It was those three elements lacking under Bruce - who didn't know his best starting XI, whose players went in to games a beaten side, who did not possess the confidence to bounce back from early goals - which led to his sacking as Sunderland manager in November.

And, after a battling 1-0 victory away to Stoke, there appears to be no stopping the resurgent Black Cats.

O'Neill himself admits that it has been a complete turnaround since coming in, with his approach to the game largely resembling that of Brian Clough, who managed a young O'Neill while at Nottingham Forest.

He said: “Winning the first game was really important. We can’t put it all down to that I am sure. But confidence has grown. Even when you have good players, they can be brittle if they are not confident. We had some very decent players and the confidence was low, I have seen it before. Ask what comes first, winning a football match breeds confidence.

“The message is don’t complicate the game, it is pretty simple. No matter how clever you are you can only get a few instructions on the field of play. Go and play your natural game.

“During the week if you can help and instruct properly and simplify things, then players can do it properly. The last thing you want to do is three minutes before you go out give them three new instructions. That is preposterous.

“If you’d ask me before the Blackburn game if we’d get this many points by now would have said a very tall order. I really didn’t know enough about the squad in that sense. It's nice to learn there are a couple of players that I would still have to find out about.”

Before Saturday, Sunderland had never won at the Britannia Stadium in the Premier League, but the winless run came to an end as James McClean scored the only goal in a wintry day in Stoke as Robert Huth saw red in the first half.

Conditions at the Britannia Stadium were possibly on the wrong side of playable approaching kick-off, as a northerly wind picked up and swept the already thick snow into the players' faces.

Neither side registered a meaningful chance for the first half-hour as both sets of players got to grips with the Arctic conditions. Stephane Sessegnon and Jon Walters both enjoyed half-chances with shots from distance, both gathered by respective goalkeepers, while a collision with Simon Mignolet ended Cameron Jerome's afternoon prematurely.

Conditions at the Britannia were reminiscent of Sunderland's abandoned game against Fulham in 2006, where then-Black Cat Rory Delap was unsighted by a snowflake in his eye and slid into George McCartney, breaking his own nose in the process and injuring McCartney.

To this day, it is the only Premier League game to be abandoned, and while the snow came down in the Midlands, there was little chance of an abandonment – and Delap, now a central midfielder for Stoke, came through unscathed.

But Potters manager Tony Pulis would sorely have wished for an abandonment on the stroke of half-time when he lost his centre-half to a reckless challenge on Meyler. On second and third view, the tackle was indeed full-blooded, but both feet were planted on the ground, but Atkinson only took one view of it before dismissing Huth. The debate will rage on and on, but the initial reaction was that the tackle was outside of the law.

Former Middlesbrough defender Jonathan Woodgate came on for Jermaine Pennant, as Stoke went from direct to even more direct with every move after the interval.

The pitch was cleared by groundsmen at half-time, though peculiarly, Simon Mignolet's goalmouth was not cleared and Thomas Sorensen's was. It was a move which backfired when Sunderland took the lead on the hour mark.

McClean, finding no joy on the left flank, cut inside before exchanging passes with Sessegnon. The Irish winger lost his footing on the edge of the box, but, as he moved into the area cleared of snow, he regained his balance to tuck a neat right-footed shot under former Sunderland keeper Sorensen.

Before that, Sessegnon had headed over from McLean's right-sided cross, but Stoke piled pressure on after the goal and poured forward in search for the equaliser.

Delap's long-range effort whistled over Mignolet's crossbar on 63 minutes, while Walters, one of Stoke's few outstanding players, saw his shot wide on 68 minutes.

Peter Crouch went close with a header from Glenn Whelan's lofted ball into the box on 71 minutes, and substitute Ricardo Fuller's shot from 20 yards out was well-held by Mignolet.

John O'Shea captained the side in the continuing absence of Lee Cattermole, and he echoed the opinions of Phil Bardsley, who said in midweek that O'Neill's simplistic approach to the game has been a revelation at the Academy of Light.

O'Shea said: "The belief the squad has, it's fantastic. Today when Stoke went down to ten men it gave us the advantage. We knew they'd play a lot more direct - even more so when they went down to ten men. We dealt with that well and what a fantastic goal from McClean. He's been inspirational for us.

“It's not only the new manager factor, it's the recipe for success that he brings, the belief he brings, the team he has around him, the whole package.

"The players have to respond and do it on the pitch, and thankfully we have been doing that. We've got a massive replay on Wednesday to look forward to now (against Middlesbrough) . If we get through that we've got Arsenal at home in the Cup. That's a massive opportunity for us.

"The manager has said Europe's far away from our minds. We';re not talking about that, we're not thinking about that at all. We just want to get as many points as we can. You come away to Stoke and you get three points, you know you've done well."