Hail the Reserves, Cup Final conquerors of Walsall



It is always a pleasure to receive an upbeat text message from a Sunderland match I haven’t been able to attend (we won’t go into how many of those there are these days).

Pete Sixsmith’s, from the Eppleton CW ground, read last night:

We are now the proud holders of the Tote Cup after beating the mighty Walsall 3-0. Cook and Tounkare (2)

I very much hope Pete will add to this before I hit the road, members of NASTY (the National Association of Scummy Toe-Rags and Yobs) permitting, for an Anfield-based weekend.

But it is right to salute the performance of the Reserves in securing the trophy in the delayed final, a hangover from fixtures congestion at the end of last season.

The reserve team manager Keith Bertschin said at safc.com: “It was a fiercely competitive game against a Walsall side who put up a good showing. It’s always nice to win something and I’m delighted for the lads. Perhaps 3-0 flattered us a little. There wasn’t much in the game – we played a lot of football in the final third but gave the ball away cheaply at times.”

The teams:

Sunderland

Carson, Bagnall, Liddle, Reed (Marrs, 90), Egan, Laing, Mitchell, Armstrong (Elliott, 78), Tounkara, Laidler (Gorrin, 81), Cook.
Subs Not Used: Watson, Pickford.

Walsall

Grof, Beevers, Benning, Forde, Tank, Smith, Deards, Botfield (Cresswell, 77), Bowerman, Butlin (Maher, 60), Paterson (Williams, 62).
Subs Not Used: George, Morris.

I await Pete – or Steve Bruce’s – response to my question as to whether Jordan Cook and Oumare Tounkara now start at Liverpool …

Monsieur Salut

1 thought on “Hail the Reserves, Cup Final conquerors of Walsall”

  1. The situation around Tounkare has got me a bit confused.Is he now quietly developing into a possible first player? I see he has been given a squad number which to me suggets he must be.

    In general it looks to me as we are very healthy when it comes to the so called ‘development squad'(.ie Laing, Tounkare, Reed, Cook, Adams, Liddle,Gorrin,Knott, McLean , Deacon and the two Nobles) I wonder if the club has worked out that it can be good business sense to develop players and then sell them on at a profit . Ajax and Feyenoord have been sucessfully doing this for years

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