Dick’s post West Ham Advochaat: I’m proud of the players

Malcolm Dawson writes…..on the way back from today’s game Pete Sixsmith got a text suggesting that Big Dick had checked out of the Ramside and sent flowers to the staff. Of course with the international break coming up maybe he’s just off to see the missus to tell her that today the boys in red and white played their hearts out. The first forty five minutes produced some great attacking football and we didn’t look like a team in crisis. We could and should have had more. Borini had two great chances and I thought we might have had a penalty but the added time curse struck and the second half was a different story. This was one of those games where both sets of supporters might have left feeling disappointed but surely no-one at today’s game could question the players’ attitude. Big Dick was happy. This may be his last e-mail to M. Salut. I hope he stays. I fear he won’t.

SUNDERLAND 2 WEST HAM UNITED 2

Dear Colin,

It’s the best game I’ve seen from our players; the way we played and got forward is what the fans like to see. We scored two beautiful goals; there was great movement and great action. The way we played the first half was of a really high standard.

At the end of the first half it was 2-1, had we gone in 2-0 of course it would have been better. We even had the chances to score 2 or 3 more goals, but it wasn’t to be.

After the red card it made it more difficult so I am happy with a point after that. The players gave everything and the crowd got right behind them, it was a joy to watch.

[Jeremain] Lens’ goal was particularly nice; [Steven] Fletcher’s was just as good and then the action we saw from Fabio [Borini] was great, he was finding space and if he had scored from the chances he had that would have been game over.

We just didn’t have any luck, that will change and I think we were the better side today. The players did very well, I’m very happy with their performance.

Thanks for your support,

Dick Advocaat

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