Nigeria’s Victor Anichebe has Sunderland, black cats on their ninth life, suddenly purring

Steve Luckings writes as Sunderland soar back out of the depths of the Premier League relegation race, they can thank the eye-opening Victor Anichebe for spurring them on.

Sunderland's Victor Anichebe reacts during the win against Leicester City last weekend. Lee Smith / Action Images / Reuters / December 3, 2016

They can't do it again, can they? Surely Sunderland, a team who share joint ownership of the worst start to any Premier League season, serial strugglers, perennial underachievers and a team over-reliant on the goals of a 34-year-old journeyman, have ran out of luck?

If the ancient proverb claims a cat has nine lives then a club that goes by the nickname of the Black Cats has surely already used up eight of them. Since being promoted back to the Premier League in 2007/08, they have finished in the top half only once, with finishes of 15th, 16th, 10th, 13th, 17th, 14th, 16th and 17th.

In that time they have worked through seven full-time managers and two caretakers, often relying on the galvanising effect of a new skipper to salvage the wreckage of their season by the narrowest of margins, navigating them through dangerous waters and across the finish line with the wind in their sails.

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In keeping with the nautical theme, the captain of last season’s great escape, Sam Allardyce, abandoned ship weeks before the start of the 2016/17 campaign to board the luxury cruiseliner of England, although the end result 67 days later resembled the same feat that met the Titanic.

If Allardyce was the architect of Sunderland’s survival last term, Jermain Defoe was the master builder. Without his 15 Premier League goals Sunderland would have been shipwrecked by Easter. At 34 he is no spring chicken, and the overreliance on the former England international is like hoping your clapped out old banger of a car will make the journey home while smoke is billowing from the engine.

Allardyce’s replacement, David Moyes, was handed the most unenviable task when he took over three weeks before the start of the season: How to improve on a squad short on quality with just weeks until the transfer window closed?

Teams such as Sunderland cannot afford to buy players who need time to adapt, they need ones who can immediately improve the team, if not quite superstars then at the very least those who can hit the ground running. So the signing of Victor Anichebe, a man released by West Bromwich Albion in the summer, raised more than a few eyebrows.

In 192 appearances, the Nigerian striker averages a goal every 7.3 Premier League games, with his best return a paltry six in 26 appearances for an Everton managed by Moyes in 2012/13. You get the feeling if Anichebe was your milkman you would wake up every morning to broken bottles outside your front door.

But he has proved an inspired bit of business. In six appearances so far he has scored thrice, but it is his all-round impact that has really caught the eye. At 1.91 metres tall and 85 kilograms of pure muscle, Anichebe should be a player few defenders relish playing against. He has hassled, harried, bullied and bulldozed, and acted as both creator for his strike partner Defoe and a finisher willing to share the goal burden.

Sunderland’s two points from their first 10 games to start the campaign equalled Manchester City’s unwanted record set in 1995/96. But the turnaround since has been emphatic, with nine points gleaned from the last four games.

Anichebe’s presence has been a major factor in that. At 28 and with a decade in the top flight, he could finally be ready to make his mark and Sunderland could pull off yet another great escape.

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