Sunderland earned a 1-1 draw against relegation-threatened Hull City on Saturday afternoon, with Ellis Simms in particular disappointing for Tony Mowbray’s side.
After a disappointing defeat against West Brom at the Stadium of Light on Monday evening, the Black Cats will have been hoping to bounce back away from home on Saturday afternoon.
However, they could only muster a point against the Tigers, with Ozan Tufan’s late strike cancelling out Ross Stewart’s opener, which came 15 minutes after Elliot Embleton had been shown a straight red card.
It was always going to be difficult for Mowbray’s side to earn all three points after the midfielder’s dismissal but in truth, the performance before that was already disappointing and the blame should not lie solely with Embleton, who was perhaps unfortunate to be sent off given that he was badly injured in the process.
It was arguably Simms who was the most disappointing performer on Saturday afternoon, with Sofascore awarding him a poor 6.4/10 rating for his display, with only Amad Diallo (6.2) and Embleton (6.1) ranked lower of the Sunderland players to feature in the game.
During his 60 minutes on the pitch, the Everton loanee would manage just 16 touches of the ball and complete seven passes, both of which were fewer than goalkeeper Anthony Patterson, who contributed 45 touches and 26 passes.
It was also fewer than his replacement Ross Stewart, who had 25 touches and eight passes to add to his goal, despite being on the pitch for half the time.
On the few occasions Simms did have the ball at the KC Stadium, he was very wasteful with it, failing with all three of his dribble attempts and failing to register a key pass or shot on target, while he also lost possession seven times.
Considering he has averaged 1.9 shots, 0.9 key passes and 0.3 dribbles per game in the second tier so far this campaign, it is clear that he was nowhere near his best against Hull, and Mowbray might consider handing Stewart a start ahead of the youngster when they take on Blackburn on Boxing Day.
