So a Leicester-supporting pal says his lot were the better side but adds that it’s difficult to tell which of the two will go down. M Salut thought aloud at ESPN – http://www.espnfc.com/club/sunderland/366/blog/post/2158151/black-cats-fail-to-shine-at-leicester – neither side could grumble at the outcome. Here, with young Keir Bradwell absent on family duties, is what the older Rob Hutchison made of it, one word for each player, plus a tweet I couldn’t resist repeating about the Fletcher yellow card …
Pants 8 … commanding
Revs 7… tidy
Brown 6 … worrying
O’Shea 7 … solid
Santi 6 … baby! (see his chant)
Seb 7 …busy
Gomez 7 … steady
Johnson 7 … better
Clatters 7 … controlled
Fletch 7 … handful
Wickham 7 … frustrating
Bucks 7 … improving
Briddo 6 … alreet
3,200 Fans 10 … boisterous
Love the completely different interpretations of Fletcher's yellow card incident. Sounds like he dived whilst being attacked with a machete.
— AC Mack (@AndyCorker) November 22, 2014
And what a waste of that free kick in the second half.
Not sure if I was watching a different game to other people yesterday. All the websites have given our midfielders the same ratings but I thought Gomez was terrible. He is so slow and lazy that he has to do a lot with the ball to be any good and he certainly didn’t do that. He slowed all the attacks down and never produced the bit of quality that he has shown previously. Pants made a great save midway through second that was entirely due to Gomez jogging as his man went past him. It means that seb and catts have to do huge amount of running. Of the rest, Brown made worrying mistakes and then great tackles so rating is probably fair. O’shea good, pants excellent, Vergini good going forward, worrying at back. Johnson was a bit in and out but should have had at least 2 assists and we would be raving. Front 2 looked sharp and both were clearly trying, which is a step up for at least 1.
Some encouragement but 0 goals in 3 games at the promoted clubs is worrying with what we have coming up.
I thought Gomez was good especially after first 15mins when Leicester were at our throats. He kept hold of the ball protected it and it took the sting out of the game and allowed us to regain some composure and confidence then we were great for rest of the half. For me that was mostly down to Gomez, and it was during that period when we would have banged a couple in if we had more clinical strikers. Agree with you on the other points though.