SA’s Essay: Leicester result disappointing – now Norwich is a must not lose

Malcolm Dawson writes……thanks to Sky TV messing with the fixtures, I passed my season ticket onto one of my young relatives as I was committed to something else in the not so wild commuter belt of Northumberland. In a scenario reminiscent of that episode of “Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads” where Bob and Terry go to great lengths to avoid hearing the score of the England v Yugoslavia match, I managed to get home and watch a recording of the match “as live”. The atmosphere in the Sunderland supporting areas of the North East has been quite weird since January. No-one seems pessimistic. People think we’ll get out of the relegation places. Despite the unarguable improvement in the team since the last transfer window we simply aren’t picking up enough points. With our goal difference being better than that of the Canaries in effect we need to pick up four more points than them with one game in hand. Beat them next week and we only need one more point than they get with a game in hand over the last weeks of the season. Lose and we can say goodbye to the top flight. Must Win or Can’t Lose? Sam knows what he thinks and tells us in his latest e-mail to M Salut and the rest.

Jake's take on Big Sam
Jake’s take on Big Sam
SUNDERLAND 0 LEICESTER CITY 2

Dear Colin,

It was a very tight game; very competitive and it became more of a battle than a game of football.

Leicester got the right break at the right time and due to our lack of concentration, one slip led to one long ball and Jamie Vardy made the most of it and does what we know he’s capable of. That was a big turning point in the game and then the next one was when Jack Rodwell could have pulled us back to 1-1, but it didn’t happen.

We could have got a point today, but it wasn’t to be and Leicester go marching on at the top of the table.

Losing today wouldn’t have been quite as bad if we had taken more out of the last three games.

I think our performance deserved more. However, we lost control in the last 10 minutes and we lacked quality in our passing and final ball, giving Leicester more chances to capitalise and stop us from getting back in the game.

It’s been a difficult day and coming away without any points makes next week’s game against Norwich one where we’re really going to have to hold our nerve.

As much as we want to win at Norwich, it’s definitely more important that we don’t lose because giving them three points would be worse; it’s a don’t lose game.

Thanks for your support,

Sam Allardyce


Join the Salut! Sunderland Facebook group – click anywhere along this line



And follow us on Twitter: @salutsunderland … click along this line

Click anywhere on this sentence for a glance at the home page – and highlights of all the most recent articles …

1 thought on “SA’s Essay: Leicester result disappointing – now Norwich is a must not lose”

  1. In truth, we were lucky not to lose by more than 2-0. We were terrible in the second half, and but for two great saves by Mannone in the last few minutes it could easily have been four.

    The most worrying thing, IMO, was how little we troubled their defence, particularly in the second half. Defoe was utterly wasted up on his own, and what little service he received consisted of aimless long high balls, against two giant centre backs. It was noticeable that Leicester rarely played the ball forward in the air [ given that their front two are not big men ] they sensibly relied on Vardy’s ability to outpace our two CB’s, and that is exactly what he did.

    It was very disappointing, because we played well in the first half, and could have been ahead if we had anyone who could shoot straight.

Comments are closed.

Next Post