Sunderland Preview

[RoyRover]

I'm delighted with the win in what was a tricky game against a Sunderland team who've looked pretty decent at home. Good finishes by both Bentley and Santa Cruz who continues to impress. I was glad to see some of the 'big' name players dropped from the team. It shows that Hughes is prepared to make changes if players aren't doing enough, no matter who they are. Any word on McCarthy and why he wasn't in the squad. My guess is that he was told that he would start on the bench, took a huff and Hughes put Ritgers in instead.

[philipl]

The official line is that he is working intensively in one-to-one sessions on his sharpness levels. He was at the Academy game yesterday and said that he had a stiff back.

So no sign of toys out of the pram.

[rover6]

Not sure if I'm too keen on Bentley playing off the striker. Worked yesterday, it would seem, but I think some players suffer from being moved around the pitch. David Dunn and Paul Gallagher are two players who have been switched from the flanks to the centre and then back and I think that their losses in form can partly be attributed to that. And remember Bentley at Norwich and Arsenal didn't hack it as a second forward, despite glimmers of promise.

It takes a particularly special and crucially, intelligent player, to really succeed as a second forward. Bentley has the talent but does he have the brains to be our Bergkamp?

[ABBEY]

ask hughsie..think he knows more than thee owd lad

[stuwilky]

Comedy moment of yesterday has to be the phone call I received from several leathered message board members at about 11pm!

Jealous - you betcha.

[thenodrog]

Am I right to assume that only the people who were at The Stadium of Light are the only ones to vote in the poll? To the best of my knowledge the match was not screened live in the usual places yesterday.

[andrew92]

Am I right to assume that only the people who were at The Stadium of Light are the only ones to vote in the poll? To the best of my knowledge the match was not screened live in the usual places yesterday.

well no ur not because poeple can watch practiucally the full game on football first!!

[Lathund]

Am I right to assume that only the people who were at The Stadium of Light are the only ones to vote in the poll? To the best of my knowledge the match was not screened live in the usual places yesterday.

Wasn't aired live here (Scandinavia, i.e Canal+), but was shown later that night. Which is when I watched it, and I assume others did the same.

[Fife Rover]

The official line is that he is working intensively in one-to-one sessions on his sharpness levels. He was at the Academy game yesterday and said that he had a stiff back.

So no sign of toys out of the pram.

I just love the way you refuse to use subjects/objects in your opening sentence almost every post Philip. It makes for a marvellous guessing game for your readers in trying to workout what you are actually talking about.

[Fife Rover]

Am I right to assume that only the people who were at The Stadium of Light are the only ones to vote in the poll? To the best of my knowledge the match was not screened live in the usual places yesterday.

No you are wrong to assume that Theno; I voted for Santa after I had watched my 52 minute "ration" as dished out by Sky+ at 10-15pm.

[James No. 7]

Am I right to assume that only the people who were at The Stadium of Light are the only ones to vote in the poll? To the best of my knowledge the match was not screened live in the usual places yesterday.

It was live on Fox Sports 3 in Australia.

[philipl]

I am not allowed to say how I watched it but it wasn't live before I get inundated with PMs!

[Rovermatt]

I just watched the highlights and I'm mightily impressed-a real smash and grab raid. Fantastic.

[Guest fernhurstblue]

i dont think many people who went would have been very impressed by the first 45 mins ..... if hughes is to stick with 4-5-1 with two strikers then i would be tempted to try roberts, derbyshire didnt seem suited to it (thats me being kind to the lad).

[Neil Weaver]

a real smash and grab raid

Don't know who did the editing but it was anything but. I would guess pretty even on posession but only Rovers posing any sort of threat. And hard to fault Rev's view........

Great result today despite a poor first half from both sides. During that period our five man midfield meant we looked solid enough but the excellent Santa Cruz was left isolated with the result that we posed no threat up front.

Just like on Wednesday night we appeared to crank it up several gears after the break, getting more support up to Santa. Two quick goals killed it off ten minutes into the second period and the only minor quibble was that we rather casually tossed away two or three golden opportunities to put the match completely beyond doubt. On another day that might have cost us, particularly as we let one in right on the final whistle leading to an unnecessarily tense four minutes of injury time.

Overall though we never looked in any real danger of not winning once we got the two goals ahead. Maybe not a result to go completely overboard about as Sunderland did look very poor - or was that because we did such a good job on them?

Man of the match by some distance was Santa Cruz imo. Samba (again) and Ooijer (who I'm not a fan of) were excellent and Emerton did brilliantly leading up to the decisive second goal. Everyone else was solid and workmanlike rather than dazzling apart from Derbyshire who had an off day.

Very satisfactory all in all. One or two egos left on the bench or even out of the squad recently and two wins out of two.

..... thought Derbs didn't look as though he knew what was expected of him. We ended up playing very narrow and I thought we looked much better when MGP came on, even though he didn't make a massive contribution. Couldn't help notice a real contrast between when Roque and Dunn/Bentley on the ball - when the ball reaches Santa Cruz he runs forward and makes defenders backpeddle, Dunn/Bentley etc just want to keep the ball and are happy to play a square or backward pass. Think I know what defenders would prefer to play against.

[yorkblues]

Snats a man

??

what the hell did you have to drink.

do you need a lift on thurs??

[tchocky]

Wasn't aired live here (Scandinavia, i.e Canal+), but was shown later that night. Which is when I watched it, and I assume others did the same.

Yup Better than nothing.

[SAS]

a good win for us, beat the brummies and we are in great stead for the season

goals werent the best but it doesnt matter how they go in as they all count the same

[Flopsy]

I was impressed by Bert MkII's contributions, especially for the 2nd goal, who'd have thought that 1) He'd have run at the defence 2) Not attempted a back heeled flick to no one 3) Had a shot on target and 4) Have the poise and thinking to knock that header to Cruz.

Well done Bert (and Santa for being in the right place at the right time)

[roversmum]

Bert Almighty !

[thenodrog]

Have the poise and thinking to knock that header to Cruz.

Good job the ball came to his head and was not on the ground eh? Credit to him though he did have a quick look to see where Cruz was before he headed it.

[Presty On Tour]

well happy with the win here, got it sorted in the 2nd half.

if we played all our games up north we would be champions

[philipl]

North Eastern paper bemoans the gulf in class. Sunderland had £25m transfer fees in their starting line-up. Our's had cost less than £12.5m.

[Paul]

Am I right to assume that only the people who were at The Stadium of Light are the only ones to vote in the poll? To the best of my knowledge the match was not screened live in the usual places yesterday.

Personally I only vote on the games I've watched, which generally is the home matches and the odd Sky / Setanta game. I don't have Sky so can't record and don't vote on the basis of 30 seconds on MOTD. Thought Bert and and Santa combined very well for the second goal, some real thinking going on there.

Surprised no one has spotted the piece in yesterday's Observer by our very own RevidgeBlue - good comments, got a lot into a small article.

[philipl]

Missed it- can you provide a link?