Paolo Di Canio was honest enough after the Southampton game to admit in his post-match e-mail, exclusive to us and probably 35,000 others, that a win for Sunderland would have been fortunate. He did not explain why he finished a game with three strikers when we were desperately trying to defend a narrow lead …
Dear Colin,
It was a tough game away from home, the players have worked their socks off and we nearly came away with all three points.
Maybe we wouldn’t have deserved that, but last week we did deserve to win and that didn’t work for us either.
We looked very good after taking the lead; physical presence is important during set pieces but if you’re an intelligent player and work well you can have the same effect, this is what Giaccherini did to get his goal and he took it very well.
He wanted a goal and now and he has his first, I hope it will be a big lift for him and he can go and push on.
Overall, I think we did well in the game, there were a few moments when we were under pressure where we should have done better.
We were punished late in the game and it was a poor goal to concede. We must make sure we learn from this mistake that is very important for the team.
Coming away with one point is good enough for today, now we move on and we start to look ahead to MK Dons in the Capital One Cup.
All the best,
Paolo Di Canio
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The difference with this rollercoaster is the ups are normally just our imagination!
I hate roller coasters me!!!
Cabral picked up a knock midweek apparently which was a loss as he was our best player against Fulham .The Wickham /Ji substitutions completely baffled me at the time and sadly my worries came to fruition. From screaming out for a change that never came under O’Neill to shouting ” no!” yesterday. Fasten your belts we’re in for one hell of a roller coaster ride.
If there was improvement in our attacking movement against Fulham, we took a step backwards yesterday. Sess seems to automatically be to blame if he isn’t on top from, i’m not convinced he’s the problem. When he gets the ball. rarely, he has the same problem he had last season, no team mates anywhere near. Our attackers need to be constantly interchanging for it to work, watch Liverpool now and see the difference, how often Coutinho gets the ball at his feet. Never going to happen with Gardner and Larsson there. What’s the definition of stupidity again?
What Ji did in Germany is irrelevant, he’s lightweight, lacks pace and will never be as good as Sessegnon. Martin O’Neill used to take off Johnson even on his brighter days no matter how poor McClean was, maybe Di Canio will leave him on no matter how ineffective he is and sacrifice our best player instead, without being able to see why he isn’t producing. He may be sold now, but if anyone thinks that means our problems will be automatically solved can think again.
We played hardly any games in pre-season, and our second league game in we ignored players that have played a few games, in favour of lads that haven’t, that also aren’t good enough. Baffled completely.
I don’t like to comment too much on games I wasn’t at but I was surprised that Cabral didn’t start unless he has a niggle of some kind. Why bring Vaughan on ahead of him otherwise? With PDC I suppose he may have had mayonaisse on his chips the night before?
Apart from the one defensive lapse that let Fulham score I thought Roberge looked quality though I know that one lapse cost us the game and a point.
I don’t know why people get into the Ji/Wickham argument because to my eyes neither is the finished product and apart from the odd moment neither looks a game changer. Hopefully Fletcher will soon be fit enough to return. It will be interesting to see if he and Altidore can gel.
Cabral must have been injured. That would be the -only- excuse.
I think he preferred Ji over Whickham because he should be able to provide the link between midfield and strikers after playing as a midfielder in Germany. And to be fair to PDC we need to look at someone to play the #10 role because Sess has been woeful.
Spot on.
Yes, you do have to wonder about the 3 strikers,what did Cabral do so wrong last week that he thinks Ji or Whickham can do a midfield job better?.
As to Ji….he’ll never make the grade here,can’t believe he is preferred to Whickham.
He may have thought that we could kill the game off and get another goal. We couldn’t, and we didn’t.
Think its slightly unfair to ask , “why did you end with three strikers” because Ji and Wickham would have been asked to get back and press the ball in midfield.
Only Altidore would remain up top by himself.