[Archived] Sunderland Preview - 20:00 Monday 18th October

[Sparky Marky]

To me, we could never win the game from anything other than a set-piece, which is very worrying. When Samba went, that was it on the goal front...we didn't look dangerous from a set piece again all night.

Hoilett is the guy to partner Benjani when all are fit. To not play 442 against sunderland at home is a crime. Hoilett was perfect to play against Bramble, quick, small, aattacks defenders and was likely to force a mistake out of our friend Titus. I can't understand why this lad hasn't been given an opportunity. Instead Bramble had a bloody birthday and played without any pressure.

[thenodrog]

As someone else said above the United Diouf looks our liveliest striker, god knbows why he didn't get on the pitch before the laughable Benjani.

Waddling about for ten minutes, taking a ride on the back of a defender and then staggering off the pitch. What was that all about?

Performance money earned?

Simon you were beside yourself with glee when Benjani was helped off. Thats neither good nor fair and especially when the injury was concussion. (.... I'd imagine a good crack on the head might even floor the great John Curtis. )

I hope I'm wrong but I'm of the opinion that you are a taj disappointed this morning to discover that Benjani hasn't scrambled his knee ligaments.

[thenodrog]

One other note in the game, Diouff was superb last night, I hate the guy, but he was excellent last night.

You have the advantage over me there Gav. I've never met him so I'm in no position to judge him as a person.

btw I never met Speedie, Batty, Dickov or Sav either but they did damned well for us despite being the target of opposition abuse.

[booth]

If there's one thing playing with ten men taught us last night it's that Jones MUST play in defense!

We look bulletproof when he's at the back. He is NOT a midfielder

Beginning to get really miffed with SA.

[thenodrog]

If there's one thing playing with ten men taught us last night it's that Jones MUST play in defense!

We look bulletproof when he's at the back. He is NOT a midfielder

Beginning to get really miffed with SA.

Really? Tony Adams started in midfield and he went on to do OK at CH.

Jones does OK in midfield he has masses of energy, is a good tackler and besides that we are overrun with capable centre halves. Unfortunately imo Jones has developed a habit of ball watching and is caught wrong side of his marker rather too frequently which he needs to remedy. He needs to get himself between the ball nad the goal quicker. Walcotts goal v Arsenal was directly down to the same mistake by Jones when Arshavin dropped deep.

Yet again though people on this thread are choosing to ignore the fact that SA was denied money to improve his squad during the summer, so it's obviously a case of needs must and weeing with the willy that we have. Why is that so hard for people to comprehend? I wonder if this might help.

Sunderland summer signings....

IN: Titus Bramble (Wigan, £1m), Cristian Riveros (Cruz Azul, undisclosed), Simon Mignolet (Sint Truidense, £2m), Ahmed Al-Muhammadi (ENPPI, loan), Marcos Angeleri (Estudiantes, £2m), Danny Welbeck (Manchester United, loan), John Mensah (Lyon, loan) Asamoah Gyan (Rennes £13m)

Including the undisclosed fee I make that circa £20m without wages!

A point of concern last night was the way Givet was left to deal with Bent on his own when Bent out muscled him and missed the chance of the match. Neither salgado nor anybody else were attempting to get close enough to intervene should Givet make an error.

I'm not going with the gung ho gang here who think that all bricklayers can play concert standard violins. Overall quite an enthralling end to end first half followed by a very gritty and determined second half performance under the circumstances of being down to 10 men. If anybody wants a positive comment (and lots don't it seems) then only a squad with a strong team spirit and sense of togetherness could have performed well enough to get something from last night and restrict the opposition to so few chances. The team spirit stregthened noticably early last spring and has continued to strengthen imo.

[Mc Love]

Philips couldn't even get Jack Walker's name right, tw@t.

Noticed that alright - what an eejit

[Exiled_Rover]

To me, we could never win the game from anything other than a set-piece, which is very worrying. When Samba went, that was it on the goal front...we didn't look dangerous from a set piece again all night.

Hoilett is the guy to partner Benjani when all are fit. To not play 442 against sunderland at home is a crime. Hoilett was perfect to play against Bramble, quick, small, aattacks defenders and was likely to force a mistake out of our friend Titus. I can't understand why this lad hasn't been given an opportunity. Instead Bramble had a bloody birthday and played without any pressure.

Kalinic is the one that needs a target man as a strike partner. Hoilett hasn't kicked on at all. He's been a massive disappointment.

[Ozz]

From the Guardian newspaper...

Sam Allardyce and Steve Bruce apparently meet up on their holidays to get smashed on brandy, and when you see what they have to put up with during working hours it is not hard to understand why. They are both paid handsomely yet are still in dead‑end, mundane jobs.

[Stuart]

Quite an amusing moment near the end when Steve Bruce feigned to take a quick throw-in to one of his players.

Well, I laughed.

[JAL]

Benjani no goals again what a bad, bad signing. Sack the board

[Hughesy]

You're having a laugh Hughesy, most blatant sending off I've seen in a while, last man, pulled him back.

Blatant or clumsy? Cant say iv seen it again on the TV but it looked unlucky & most people who had seen it in the concourse said it wasnt even a foul, more a tangle between two players...!?

I agree with most of your points hughesy but kalinic needs to go down easier - are you mad?

He goes down easier than Paris Hilton, I've never seen a player go to ground as much.

Im not so sure - where do you sit at Ewood? From the Bburn End it is clear to see that defenders are all over his back, holding, pushing etc...sometimes if he was abit smarter, some of them pushes would lead to a fall & a free-kick in his favour...quite often he stays on his feet but with a defender too tight to do anything with, due to lack of support.

[DE.]

It was a definite sending off, no question about it. Even if it's an accidental tangle of legs, it's still been initiated by Samba and he's therefore stopped a goalscoring opportunity - ergo it's a sending off.

[Inta Beaver]

I can't believe Catermole didn't get a card for his dive but moments before that he handballed the ball as Pederson lobbed it over his head in the centre circle, he also handled it in the 2nd half. By the letter of the law Samba had to go, but was the letter of the law played for Catermole? He didn't even get a yellow.

[gumboots]

Blatant or clumsy? Cant say iv seen it again on the TV but it looked unlucky & most people who had seen it in the concourse said it wasnt even a foul, more a tangle between two players...!?

Unfortunately Samba was foolish enough to put his hand on the guy's shoulder. It was the kind of touch that would have gone unnoticed if there had been a crowded penalty area but as they were the only 2 players for the linesman to look at, he saw it clearly and adjudged it enough of a foul to prevent the player scoring. I don't think just the tangle of legs would necessarily of itself have been picked up on. Of course it might. It was a very soft way to get sent off.

[John]

Whilst obviously he has areas to improve on, Jones for me looks very assured when playing at centre back.

MGP distribution was decent last night, some good/threatening set-pieces.

Some top class saves from Robinson.

Benjani looked OK when he came on and seems to have more of an idea how to play the lone striker role compared with Nico – find it strange that he still receives criticism when he works hard and the manager had very little alternative in the summer when looking for strikers.

Overall, by reading some of the more negative comments on here, I fail to believe/understand how you think we should be doing much better…….

[waggy]

when samba was sent off all we could hope for was a point,which we got.some say it was never a sending off,but if it was at the other end of the pitch we would have all said it was.andy gray pointed out that samba and saldago were busy chatting to one another before he recieved the ball which led to the sending off,we looked very shaky in the 1st half at the back,if bent was 100%fit we might have lost,point gained i think!!!but whilst it was 11 v 11 the match was shocking

[gumboots]

Whilst obviously he has areas to improve on, Jones for me looks very assured when playing at centre back.

MGP distribution was decent last night, some good/threatening set-pieces.

Some top class saves from Robinson.

Benjani looked OK when he came on and seems to have more of an idea how to play the lone striker role compared with Nico – find it strange that he still receives criticism when he works hard and the manager had very little alternative in the summer when looking for strikers.

Overall, by reading some of the more negative comments on here, I fail to believe/understand how you think we should be doing much better…….

I don't think most of us do, but you've got to admit that overall, to give their keeper absolutely nothing to worry about all night, was pretty boring stuff. Even if we don't score I'd like the thought that we just might to last more than 2 minutes.

[only2garners]

Blatant or clumsy? Cant say iv seen it again on the TV but it looked unlucky & most people who had seen it in the concourse said it wasnt even a foul, more a tangle between two players...!?

He tried to be clever in playing the ball, messed it up and then put his hand on Welbeck's shoulder, giving him every excuse to go down - his mistake, he messed up. I just wonder what you would be saying if Nelsen had been playing and had done that?

[John]

I don't think most of us do, but you've got to admit that overall, to give their keeper absolutely nothing to worry about all night, was pretty boring stuff. Even if we don't score I'd like the thought that we just might to last more than 2 minutes.

I think in an attacking sense (midfield/strikers), we have very average players.

Apart from Dunn, we have no one with enough quality to make a positve impact (in an attacking sense).

As for last night, it was always going to be more difficult to win the game and create many changes when we had 10 men for over half the game.

[Sparky Marky]

Kalinic is the one that needs a target man as a strike partner. Hoilett hasn't kicked on at all. He's been a massive disappointment.

Kalinic isn't blessed with much pace, so I'd prefer Benjani as the target man and Hoilett moving off him in a Heskey/Owen type arrangement. I firmly believe that Hoilett has what it takes, just needs a run of games at this level.

[robbo_rovers]

I reckon Jason Roberts could have done a job in the second half up on his own. Kalinic wasn't strong enough to hold the ball up.

[Tom]

I sit in the BBE hughesy, second half especially Niko threw himself to ground every chance he could, often first backing in first.

You could hear people grumble everytime he did it

[Kelbo]

He tried to be clever in playing the ball, messed it up and then put his hand on Welbeck's shoulder, giving him every excuse to go down - his mistake, he messed up. I just wonder what you would be saying if Nelsen had been playing and had done that?

For me, bad decision making, he needed to put his foot through the ball in that particular instance, you have to be switched on, especially just before the break,

just get rid of the ball and see through to the break.

Incidentally, a statistic which is quite interesting, look at the number of goals scored between the following times,

1-5mins 40- 45mins and 85 - 90 (plus injury time) there are quite a number, the reason is that concentration is low as you start and get into the game, at 40 minutes it drops as you approach the break and again as we near the end of the game, concentration dips as fatigue kicks in!

[booth]

Really? Tony Adams started in midfield and he went on to do OK at CH.

Jones does OK in midfield he has masses of energy, is a good tackler and besides that we are overrun with capable centre halves. Unfortunately imo Jones has developed a habit of ball watching and is caught wrong side of his marker rather too frequently which he needs to remedy. He needs to get himself between the ball nad the goal quicker. Walcotts goal v Arsenal was directly down to the same mistake by Jones when Arshavin dropped deep.

Yet again though people on this thread are choosing to ignore the fact that SA was denied money to improve his squad during the summer, so it's obviously a case of needs must and weeing with the willy that we have. Why is that so hard for people to comprehend? I wonder if this might help.

Sunderland summer signings....

IN: Titus Bramble (Wigan, £1m), Cristian Riveros (Cruz Azul, undisclosed), Simon Mignolet (Sint Truidense, £2m), Ahmed Al-Muhammadi (ENPPI, loan), Marcos Angeleri (Estudiantes, £2m), Danny Welbeck (Manchester United, loan), John Mensah (Lyon, loan) Asamoah Gyan (Rennes £13m)

Including the undisclosed fee I make that circa £20m without wages!

A point of concern last night was the way Givet was left to deal with Bent on his own when Bent out muscled him and missed the chance of the match. Neither salgado nor anybody else were attempting to get close enough to intervene should Givet make an error.

I'm not going with the gung ho gang here who think that all bricklayers can play concert standard violins. Overall quite an enthralling end to end first half followed by a very gritty and determined second half performance under the circumstances of being down to 10 men. If anybody wants a positive comment (and lots don't it seems) then only a squad with a strong team spirit and sense of togetherness could have performed well enough to get something from last night and restrict the opposition to so few chances. The team spirit stregthened noticably early last spring and has continued to strengthen imo.

I'm not having a go at the way we played last night, I'm just annoyed that one of our best prospects is being played out of position. At first I thought it may be because Nelson was available and he wanted to accomodate Samba, Nelson and Jones in the same side (not that I agree with that either as I prefer Jones to Nelson, but it's kind of forgivable). Now however, he's sticking with it and preferring Givet.

I can't remember seeing us lose with Jones in defense. Thought he was immense last season when he replaced Nelson. It's great that he's playing "okay" in midfield but I'd prefer him to be fantastic in his best position week in week out.

[ultrablue]

A few notes on last night:

a) Spit has been the player of the season so far

B ) Nzonzi is nowhere near a premiership quality player. He is instantly replaceable. Nice lad, rubbish footballer.

c) Ditto Kalinic - stay on your blummin feet you muppet!

d) The game added to the wealth of evidence showing Rovers are OK with backs against the wall. But absolutely no varation in approach. The first half was precisely the second in terms of our style. Our 'come out all guns blazing' is exactly the same as our 'keep it tight'.