COVID chaos continues
Covid is causing havoc throughout football as we know, and cases at Sunderland put the game in jeopardy. The Black Cats were nonetheless able to bring a full squad after recalling some of their loan players including goalkeeper Anthony Patterson. Wycombe meanwhile welcomed Gareth Ainsworth back after his brief spell with COVID even if he had to do without three members of his own coaching staff who are now self-isolating.
It’s hardly ideal preparation but both clubs deserve credit for getting the game on – calling matches off on a regular basis when it’s perfectly feasible for them to go ahead is going to cause havoc in the long term. Wycombe and Sunderland both have busy fixture lists and yet they are the least congested in the division. Neither has a cup distraction and they have both have 21 league games remaining, fewer than 17 other clubs. Points on the board are more valuable than games in hand and taking what may appear to be the easiest option now can come back to haunt you when the fixtures come thick and fast at the business end of the season.
Early risers: Sunderland’s fans made it to South Bucks in time to get parked and see the 12:30 kick-off
Wycombe continue to entertain
The line ‘I wouldn’t want to watch that every week’ is regularly banded about on message boards by opposition fans who have just seen Wycombe take points off their side (oddly, it’s not usually exclaimed when Wanderers lose…). The scintillating 3-3 draw against Sunderland was yet more evidence that this line is simply a lazy, cut and paste job by individuals who choose to judge Wycombe based on their reputation rather than actual evidence. It’s true that Wycombe’s style is direct and that they know how to interrupt the flow of the game when it suits them better than most but they can play a bit too – and they regularly do. The expectation may have been that they would stifle Sunderland but the two teams went toe to toe with one another resulting in a pulsating affair. It was full-on and committed but never ill-tempered or dirty and Wycombe found a late, late goal for the fourth time at home this season. The Chairboys have only failed to score once at home all season and regularly find the net from open play (their goal at Charlton was a superb piece of patient, counter-attacking play). They remain notoriously hard to beat as well – for the second home game running, they went behind in injury time and yet still managed to salvage something from the game. You wait 23 game for a draw at Adams Park and then two come along in succession…
And they can compete with the best
AFC Wimbledon and Fleetwood Town are the only sides in the bottom half of the table that have taken any points off Wycombe thus far but their record against the teams in the top half of the division is less impressive – the defeats have come against Sunderland, Milton Keynes, Portsmouth and Ipswich (twice). Yet the 3-0 victory at Plymouth at the end of November showed they are capable of taking points off their fellow promotion chasers and that continued once again on Saturday with a draw against a team that beat them comfortably a few months back. Wycombe welcome Oxford and Milton Keynes to Adams Park before the month is out, and if they can pick up six points from those games, you’d have to fancy them for a play-off place come what May.
This still might be Sunderland’s year
League One is not an easy division to get out of. Former Premier League sides with big stadiums, fan bases and finances have found it difficult for years – all the way back to Manchester City in 1998-99. Sunderland are often mocked for a perceived arrogant attitude and a divine right to win games, a sticker that has perhaps been unfairly placed on them by fans of smaller clubs against whom the Black Cats now have to compete. It hasn’t been an easy ride for them in League One but they now appear to have figured the division out. The owners have a structure in place and Lee Johnson has turned them into a side that is both good to watch (they are the division’s top scorers) and very hard to beat. Their performances at Adams Park over the years demonstrate their progress – in 2018-19 they scrapped a last-gasp draw and in 2019-20 looked directionless during a 1-0 defeat. On Saturday though they showed quality and played as a unit, ending the game gutted with a point rather than relieved. They could do with tightening up at the back but they’re facing the right direction now and they just need to keep right on to the end of the road.
Joe Jacobson can do it all
Wycombe’s 35-year-old left-back never ceases to amaze. He was not the man taking the corner which lead to Wycombe’s equalizer on Saturday but nonetheless proved deadly from it, tapping home from close range with his lesser-used right foot for his fourth Wycombe goal from open-play (his only other goal for Wycombe with his right-foot was actually one of his best – against Shrewsbury back in 2018). His man of the match display also included a sensational goal-line clearance with goalkeeper David Stockdale beaten. He’s now scored from inside and outside the area with both feet, direct from corners, free-kicks and penalties. Time for a headed goal JJ…
Goalkeeper up, blurry pictures, scrambled equaliser – it was chaos at the end.
Wycombe Wanderers 3 (Mehmeti 13, Vokes 36, Jacobson 90+8)
Sunderland 3 (Stockdale o.g. 3, Stewart 39, 90+3)
ATT: 7,229 (Away 1,800 approx)
words Phil Slatter, D3D4 Chairboys writer