Come on in marras. Last time out we’d had a start of two halves for our second crack at the big time. If you missed it, you can catch up here. After winning 5 and drawing 1, we lost 4 on the bounce; a run that coupled up to a bunch of injuries and a loss of form by players. Here’s where it left us:

It’s a great start, 7 minutes in against Liverpool Weaver is sent off and we’re down to 10 men. Given our other ‘keepers are worse than s**** we go all outfield.

And we end up 4-1 up at one point…only to throw it away.

Curtis shouldn’t have been on the pitch. On a yellow he handballed with Dichio through on goal. Didn’t even get a warning from the ref, never mind a second yellow. Positives, but the game is against us. Next up table proper’s Middlesbrough come to the SoL.

Business as usual has resumed. It’s a shameful result when you look at their record so far including this game.

I’ll share with you our League Cup results for once, if only to cheer this miserable blog up a bit.

The 4^th round draw is unkind. It’s Man Utd. We visit 4^th placed Wolves, more reds. Wolves score with every shot on target.

It just gets better against Coventry.

Similar to Wolves, three shots on target, three goals for Coventry. 4 reds in the last 4 league games. You can kind of see why Peter Reid made signing defenders his key focus on a return to the top level. Melville, Ord, Ball, Craddock…not good enough.

On our way, on our way, to the bottom on our way. Christ. Colgan comes in for Weaver and we take him off after 45mins and play without a ‘keeper instead.

This is the defining image of our season so far.

We move to a back 3 to try and stem the tide. We’re the league’s top scorers, but we’re also the worst defence.

When faced with a side of Shearer, Nevland, Bogarde etc. I’d say that’s not a bad performance, but again, defensively appalling. Pollitt also concedes every shot he faces.

We’re officially in the relegation mire. This doesn’t help our cause at all.

Fredgaard will also be out for three games too. We crash out the League Cup 2-0 against Man Utd. Their team is phenomenal, and they’ve just signed Thuram.

This looks good, but in reality we struggled to make our mark against 10-men and almost threw it away. We whack the Apollo 440 on for the cool down…“Can’t stop the rot, can’t stop the rot”. Honestly, how did Peter Reid manage it?

Another glorious opportunity for 3 points thrown away with diabolical late defending. I mean, fair enough, Wimbledon have Zamorano, Ekokou, Youngs and Glass as a front 4, but still, should be closing that game out.

And with that, our fall from grace is all but confirmed. We are still close enough to think about recovering to 7^th place, but the form book says, “fat chance mate!”.

This guy is carrying any chance we have of survival, never mind climbing the table.

At this stage of the season, Peter Reid’s Sunderland we’re actually 3^rd having won 11 games, drawn 4 and lost 4, but were about to go on a run of 11 games without a win, hopefully we’ve had that bad run already and can recover the rest of the season. If you are mental enough to stay with us, do join us next week.

You can follow Andrew on twitter: @KingOfTheRooks