DeAndre Yedlin says that Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce should receive a lot of praise for the club staying in the Premier League.
The club have been involved in a relegation battle consistently for the last five years. Impressive is the fact that they have managed to avoid relegation by the skin of their teeth on each occasion. It was once again the case with the 2015-16 season. Along with the likes of Newcastle and Aston Villa, Sunderland were seen as the poorest team in the English top division. However, they managed to get some good results towards the end of the season to achieve safety.
In the end, Norwich joined Newcastle and Aston Villa towards the Championship. Allardyce may have joined Sunderland at the start of the season, but he has received little praise for helping the club stay in the division.Yedlin has tried to bring the attention back towards the manager, who is looked down upon by many fans – especially opposition fans – for the perceived negativity in his football style.Yedlin is at Sunderland only on a temporary basis from Tottenham, but recent reports claim that the north-east outfit are preparing to make a permanent offer for him.
Yedlin feels settled at the north-east and would want to make the move permanent as well. “I have to give a lot of credit to Big Sam, the manager. I don’t know what it was, but he made something click in my head. Maybe it’s his defensive approach to playing. Every Thursday every defender would do strictly defensive drills, no attacking at all. And we hated it, because it’s not the most fun thing to do, but at the end of the day it helps. And you could see towards the end of the season, the last 11, 12 games, we became a lot stronger as a defensive unit,” said Yedlin.