English League Championship/ Sunderland 2 Barnsley 0: Danny Blanchflower, once a man of Barnsley, was commentating for American television decades ago and summarised a poor first half in four words: "These teams can't play."
Told by his anguished producers to accentuate the positive, Blanchflower observed a little of the second half before reaching a fresh conclusion: "I'm positive these teams can't play." Lord knows what Blanchflower would have made of this first half. It was as if Sunderland in particular were intent on cramming as many elementary errors into 45 minutes as is possible.
They were booed off at the interval, but not as loudly as they might have been. A notoriously irritable crowd, Sunderland's fans displayed some new-found patience and were eventually rewarded with late goals from Dean Whitehead and Chris Brown against the only team in the division to have conceded more than Leeds.
So Wearside went home happy, a bad week featuring defeats on the road at Preston and Stoke had ended positively.
Roy Keane sounded more pleased than he looked. He emphasised the positive of "perseverance" and was relieved that two under-performers, Nyron Nosworthy and Liam Lawrence, combined to allow Whitehead to make the breakthrough.
"We have to be patient," he said. "The great teams win a lot of games in the last five or 10 minutes. We're nowhere near good enough at the moment to think we can beat any team in the first 20 minutes.
"Barnsley were there to make it hard for us and there was going to be an edginess on the back of a couple of bad results. You tend to get people questioning things and the panic sets in. You just have to keep going. Keep bloody going."
Keane has been in charge for eight matches. Four have been won but the last three away games have been lost and they face a trip to Hull City on Saturday. Sunderland have already sold out their section for that one but the turnout here was almost 9,000 down on the previous home game and Keane took note.
"The attendance was a fair reflection on how we've been playing lately," he said. "It's like a movie - if you don't think it's any good, you won't go."
Keane was, as he has been since his appointment, relaxed. Midfielder Dwight Yorke said: "He's much calmer, he's very calm. I've been very impressed."
Altering perceptions goes hand-in-hand with altering reality. Of the 43 league games prior to Keane's arrival, Sunderland won four. That's why, at this early stage, Sunderland will take winning ugly. Even Blanchflower preferred that to losing ugly.
- Guardian Service
