It was bad enough to experience if you weren’t there but getting texts and/or listening on the radio: 0-1 oh dear; 1-1 get in; 2-1 yeah, can’t lose now; 2-2 s***; 2-3 you cannot be f******serious. Pete Sixmith lived it all at Molineux and then had to send his verdicts not only to Salut! Sunderland but to The Observer. Let’s break with tradition and let the Wolves fan go first …
Tom Spiers, Observer reader
With 10 minutes to go we were staring at another defeat, but the character, team spirit and determination McCarthy has instilled into the team pulled us through. We’ve been playing well recently, but have been unlucky and I really hope this win will be the springboard to propel us up the league. Our next four games are all winnable, so it’s essential that we replicate all the qualities that were shown in this game over the coming weeks. It was a fantastic finish from Ebanks-Blake, and a smart move to bring Hunt on from the bench. Mancienne played well acting as cover for Henry.
Player ratings
Hennessey 7; Zubar 9, Stearman 5, Elokobi 8, Ward 7; Mancienne 7 (Ebanks-Blake 80 7); Foley 7, Milijas 8, Jones 6 (Hunt 63 7), Jarvis 8; Doyle 7
Pete Sixsmith, SalutSunderland.com With 15 minutes to go we were 2-1 up and looked very comfortable. Two good goals from Bent and Welbeck meant Wolves were all over the place, and I could only see us winning the game. But we went to sleep and gave them the space to score two late goals and take the points. The first half was dire (The Observer had this as dyer) but it improved after the introduction of Gyan who gave us a lot more fizz up front, and once we scored it didn’t look they were get themselves back in the game. However we imploded once Mensah had left the pitch We must play better than this to stay in the top eight.
Player ratings:
Gordon 7; Onuoha 7, Mensah 7 (Elmohamady 82 n/a), Ferdinand 8, Bardsley 8; Zenden 6 (Gyan 56 6), Henderson 6 (Malbranque 56 6), Cattermole 7, Richardson 4; Bent 6, Welbeck 7
Mensah’s Pocket. I would have said that you were a prophet were it not for the fact that we’ve been here countless times before.
Will we ever learn to win these types of games 🙁
Watch us win at Old Trafford on boxing day, ending united’s run 🙂 We’ll have lost at Fulham before then though 🙁
Gyan Bent Wellbeck to shoot down Hammers 🙂
I agree. We were abysmal. Hoofing the ball up the field instead of passing it and creating very little at all. When Wolves took the lead it was completely deserved, and they could count themselves unlucky that the first ‘goal’ was disallowed even if it was slightly offside.
Not only shocking defending to blame, but also some very dubious goalkeeping from Gordon who inspired no confidence whatsover on cross balls and took up some strange positions at times, and especially for Ebanks-Blake’s strike, even if he was unmarked.
We have a situation now where we are struggling to put together a reasonable back 4. We can’t even bring a player in on an emergency loan deal if we wanted to because all of the loans were used up at the start of the season. Now were are in queer street as a direct result. The blame for this lies with the owner now as I doubt whether Bruce would have wanted to paint himself into a corner like this if he could have signed loanees permanently. It’s like trying to build a house with bricks from your next door neighbours house. The loan system is something that we can use, but not to the point where loanees are the mainstay of the team.