Pete Sixsmith felt a draw was fair, and listening to Barnes and Benno, Monsieur Salut thought the same. Injuries – Loovens off in the first few minutes, with more to follow – certainly harmed our cause but we must somehow learn how to keep a clean sheet. Pete did not, he assures us, ride naked on Lady Godiva’s horse to the Ricoh but will be writing more fully about being sent to Coventry ….
Sept 29 Coventry City (0) 1 Sunderland (0) 1 Fair result that could have been worse
Sept 22 Sunderland 4 (3) Rochdale 1 (0) Fifteen minute purple patch wrapped this up
Sept 15 Burton Albion 2 (2) Sunderland 1 (o) Weaknesses horribly exposed in a deserved defeat
Sept 8 Sunderland 1 (1) Fleetwood Town 1 (1) Huffed and puffed against very difficult opponents
Sept 4 Sunderland 0 (0) [4] Stoke City U21s 0 (0) [2] *Decent workout for young guns and recoverees
Sept 8 Sunderland A (a) Fleetwood Town B (b)
Sept 1 Sunderland 1 (0) Oxford United 1 (1 ) Poor first half, dug in well second
Aug 19 Sunderland 3 (3) Scunthorpe United 0 (0) Iron pummeled as three lusty blows delivered
Aug 16 Carabao Cup: Sunderland (0) 0 Sheffield Wednesday (1) 2 Result disappointing but plenty to enthuse about
Aug 11 Luton Town (0) 1 Sunderland (1) 1 Played well in patches against solid opposition
Aug 4 Sunderland (0) 2 Charlton Athletic (1) 1 A great day for club and academy
July 21 St Mirren (0) 0 Sunderland (2) 6 * Cracking results like this will suit fine
July 17 Grimsby Town (0) Sunderland (1) 1 *Gooch’s header from Maguire’s cross settles matters
July 14 Hartlepool United (1) 1 Sunderland (0) 1 Yet to see anything to inspire confidence
July 10 Darlington (1) 1 Sunderland (0) 0 Embarrassing
Well defensively we are a bit jittery, but they are still trying gel. To be honest if we leak on goal a match that’s fair enough as we have plenty of fire power. The nature of this league seems to be that there are plenty of scoring opportunities per game.
We need to get a settled eleven and once we achieve that the performances will come. The injuries yesterday did us no favour’s and to be fair to Ross I thought he made the right decisions. These tend to be high tempo games with a significant amount of physical effort so injuries are to be expected.
On the whole Ross is doing a fine job with the resources that we currently have and I can only see us improving over time.
What is the point of loovens??
You will never build a successful side when a key defender is so injury prone.
Put him out to pasture and lets replace him with someone who doesnt suffer from chronic osteoporosis.
We were lucky to secure a point. Our gk saved our flaky backsides once again.
Worringly probably our most accomplished outfield player will be missing against posh. Thankfully power is back and hopefully he doesnt have another rush of blood because our midfield ranks look very very thin.
Catts out, gooch out, mcgeoch out of his depth, ditto nien, honeyman out of form.
Come on down bali mumba.
No doubt I will reap the scorn of the ross sycophants but seriously his summer recruitment demands questiond be asked of his optician. Baldwin and mcglaughlin seem to be the only 2 who have slipped into the squad and maintain a desired level of performance . The rest are sicknotes, football bipolars or just not good enough.
When you arent good enough for this league then god help us.
Supporters are giving him a free pass blaming the previous 2 seasons for where we are.
Ellis short has left us debt free in a league where a 3000 home gate puts you in an elite group. Our stand out players are those ross inherited.
Its a dream job that he seems to be daydreaming through.
Tin hat on
The simple fact is that it takes time to build a football team.
Ross inherited some decent players, but he has had to incorporate twelve new ones into the squad [ and had very little cash to recruit with ]
We are third in the league and have only lost one game. We are not the best team in Division One, and it would be a miracle if we were.
What we seem to have is team spirit, belief, and a manager with a record of improving teams. Plus, he appears to possess very good man management skills.
The time to make judgements about Ross’s ability is at the end of the season, or even at the end of next season. By then he will have had time to put his own stamp on things, and [ hopefully ] to have been able to recruit the sort of personnel best suited to the style that he wants to play.
Personally, I’ll be satisfied if we finish in the upper half of the league this year. I actually think we could make the play- offs, and if we do it will be IMO, a bonus.
Our club appeared to be in free fall at the end of last season. The new owners, I believe have done really well in halting what could have been a terminal slide into oblivion, and in particular, I think they have appointed a
very talented manager. I hope he is given a genuine chance to put us back to where, realistically, we should be.