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This weekend saw Sunderland suffer yet another defeat in their build-up to the play-offs, and all fans agree that they are missing one former key man.
Sunderland suffered defeat on their travels against Oxford United in their penultimate game of the 2024/25 Championship regular season.
Despite play-offs being confirmed, the Black Cats have underwent a poor run of form recently, something that was initially put down to Regis Le Bris’ rotation in recent weeks, but Sunderland’s full-strength side utilised against Oxford was still unable to notch a win.
With one game left of the regular campaign, which will see Sunderland host Queens Park Rangers at the Stadium of Light, the Black Cats will need to ensure that they aren’t approaching the play-offs with five defeats in a row, building on their current four.
The last couple of months, in fact, have been somewhat lacklustre in comparison to the early standards that Sunderland set in the earlier stages of the season, something that many Black Cats fans believe coincides with the departure of one formerly key man.
Sunderland fans believe poor form under Regis Le Bris comes down to Mike Dodds departure
On 5 February, Sunderland confirmed that assistant coach Mike Dodds would leave the club to take up the head coach vacancy at Wycombe Wanderers. Since then, the Black Cats have struggled, from initially falling away from the automatic promotion hunt, to not being able to conjure up a decent run of form ahead of the play-offs.
Following the game against Oxford United, fans took to X, with one writing that ‘Dodds leaving and our massive drop in form surely isnt a coincidence is it?’
This was followed up by another fan asking a similar question, who asked, ‘Was Dodds the reason for our good form? Seems it’, whilst another described the recent Sunderland run as the ‘worst spell of the season. It does seem odd that the tide seemed to turn once Dodds left’.
‘Totally different team from start of the season and RLB looks absolutely lost without Mike Dodds. Shocking is a kind word’, said another Sunderland fan who clearly believes that Le Bris has struggled with Dodds as his right-hand man.
Black Cats record without Mike Dodds is very alarming
At the stage of the season when Dodds left in February, Sunderland were only three points off the automatic promotion spots, the second of which was filled by Burnley, whom the Black Cats had a game in hand over.
Since then, Sunderland now sit 21 points behind Scott Parker’s side, who haven’t lost a single game since, whilst the Black Cats have accumulated a total of seven defeats since Dodds’ departure, a stat that reflects brilliantly on Burnley, but also shows the huge drop off of Sunderland, who had only lost four games when Dodds was at the club in the 2024/25 season.
Ultimately, Dodds’ departure has clearly had an impact on several of the players, an expected outcome considering the relationship he had with the younger ranks, including Jobe Bellingham and Chris Rigg.