Imperfect pitch has forced boss’ rethink
LEE Johnson admits Sunderland’s pitch problems have forced him to rethink his approach at the Stadium of Light.
The playing surface has come in for criticism from both Johnson and visiting managers this season and, while Sunderland’s groundstaff can try to implement short-term fixes between now and the end of the season, ultimately the only way to address the underlying issues is for a new pitch to be installed – and that cannot be done during the campaign.
In the meantime, Johnson will have to adapt his style of football to take account of the surface, with the emphasis on a more direct approach rather than quick and precise passing to feet.
Asked whether it has had an impact on the way he prepares his team on the training ground, he said: “Absolutely.
“I can’t play to the philosophy I want, it’s as simple as that.
“But we can only control the controllables, and that means adapting.
“It’s no excuse because we still have players who can play forward, to receive forward, and to run forward.
“Our challenge is to make a forward pass a quality pass and not just a hitand-hope pass.
“That’s what we’ll have to do until we can manage the pitch a bit better in terms of the regrowth.” Portsmouth boss Danny Cowley added his voice to the debate at the weekend in the wake of his side’s 1-0 defeat, saying: “It was a difficult pitch to play on – certainly not one befitting of such a great stadium and football club.” Johnson has discussed the pitch at length in recent months, and said in December that the wrong type of surface had been laid in the past and that the bowl-shaped stadium meant it did not get the sunlight and airflow it requires.
And he says that a ‘Desso-type’ hybrid grass/artificial fibre pitch will need to be installed to remedy the situation.
“I’ve gone into the history of this because the pitch is one of the most important aspects for the way I want to play,” Johnson said last month.
“It is so important that the ball moves with backspin rather than like tumbleweed, which slows the game down and means we can’t play the one-touch football that our number tens and our forward players are suited to. “However, we are where we are. “Historically, many moons ago, the club probably laid the wrong pitch. I heard the story where the players were asked, in Premier League days, which pitch they would prefer, and one game they won 2-0 and another game they lost 1-0, and they decided to choose the pitch based on the result.
“So there was a lot of money spent initially on probably the wrong type of pitch – not necessarily a bad pitch, but you have to remember that the Stadium of Light is a big stadium.
“It doesn’t get a lot of air though it, and it doesn’t get a lot of light, and that becomes a problem.
“Our training ground, for example, is in absolutely A1 nick and it has exactly the same surface as the stadium pitch.
“That’s because it gets a lot more light at the academy, and the airflow is constant because the breeze is there all year round!”