The Expert: Could this Sunderland side be worse than last season's Villa?

Sunderland are used to things being bad at this stage of the season but they’ve never been quite this bad. Nine games in they’re bottom of the table, having picked up just two points and failed to keep any clean sheets. Worse than that, there’s a sense of inevitable drift about them: they have the look of a doomed side.

On Saturday, Sunderland survived an awkward start, had a couple of chances towards the end of the first half and were pretty much holding their own in the second. Then after 80 minutes David Moyes took off the exhausted Steven Pienaar and replaced him with Paddy McNair. Sunderland dropped deeper and deeper, under instruction from their manager, and the game changed. West Ham, who had become frustrated, suddenly were invited to attack and sure enough they scored in the fourth minute of injury time.

Moyes was adamant Winston Reid’s winner should have been ruled out for offside as the ball passed through Jonathan Calleri’s legs, but he was level with Jack Rodwell when Reid struck the shot and the one West Ham player who was in an offside position, Cheikhou Kouyate, was not interfering.

But that’s almost a side issue beside the more basic point that Sunderland, yet again, squandered points by dropping deep late on. They did exactly the same on the opening day of the season at Manchester City having got back to 1-1, and they did the same having taken the lead late on against Southampton. Add in the late goal Sunderland conceded at home to Crystal Palace and that’s four goals they’ve let in after the 85th minute that have cost them five points. Seven points from nine games wouldn’t be great - they’d be third bottom - but it would be a lot better than the position in which they find themselves.

“I think it comes down to the pressure we've had to take in games," explained Moyes. "Eventually, if you are accepting the opposition coming on to you it can affect you in the end. If you keep giving the ball away too, we did that three or four times in the second half, that makes you more liable to concede.” Sunderland’s passing was generally poor on Saturday, with a success rate of just 70%, but it doesn’t alter the fact that they brought a lot of that pressure on themselves.

Passing has been a problem all season: only West Bromwich Albion (67%) and Burnley (71%) have lower pass completion rates than Sunderland’s 71.4%. That’s always a statistic that requires some unpacking: obviously a side that plays more long balls will have a lower pass completion rate, and that’s where the figures become really worrying for Sunderland. Burnley have completed 30.1 accurate long balls per game and West Brom 27.6. Sunderland have completed fewer than anybody else in the division with 21.3. That suggests that the low pass completion is not a side-effect of a strategy but is down to a lack of ability or confidence.

And of course long balls aren’t going to work for Sunderland when they’ve got Jermain Defoe operating as a lone striker. The service to him was dismal on Saturday, the gap between him and the midfield line vast. He managed only 15 touches, which is one of the reasons Sunderland have scored fewer goals than anybody else in the Premier League - just six. It’s not Defoe’s fault: he simply isn’t getting the service.

It’s hard, in truth, to see much hope for Sunderland. Only Burnley (8.6), Hull (9) and Middlesbrough (9.1) have had fewer shots per game than the Black Cats (9.6), only Hull (21.7) and Burnley (19.3) have conceded more shots per game than them (18.4). It’s true that they’ve been affected by injuries with Jan Kirchhoff, Fabio Borini, Lee Cattermole, Jason Denayer, Seb Larsson and Vito Mannone all out.

Perhaps their return and a couple of January signings will bring renewed momentum, but Sunderland are already in a position in which they probably need to win 10 of their remaining 29 games to survive. At the moment it’s very hard to see where even one win is coming from.

Is this the season Sunderland are relegated from the Premier League? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below