Monsieur Salut writes: please once again accept apologies for the dismal look of Salut! Sunderland. Our web guru is doing what he can to restore the site to normal after yesterday’s complete breakdown and we are pretty much in his hands. Pete Sixsmith doesn’t worry himself too much with technical matters, except in assessing SAFC’s glaring technical deficiencies. He thought we did OK in the first half until a slick United move cut us open and gave them a HT lead. A second goal 40 seconds into the second half ended the match as a contest and the third was no surprise. Catts did OK but Jake’s caption spots the obvious missing link ..
September 26 2015: Manchester United (1) 3 SAFC (0) 0 Routine for United thanks to defensive errors
September 22 2015: League Cup: SAFC (0) 1 Manchester City (4) City’s brilliance aided by pathetic Sunderland defending or Defence horribly exposed by a rampant City or Not on the same planet as City
September 19 2015: AFC Bournemouth (2) 2 SAFC (0) 0 Couldn’t recover from a truly abysmal start
September 13 2015: SAFC (0) 0 Tottenham Hotpsur (0) 1 Vastly improved performance not reflected by result
August 29 2015: Aston Villa (2) 2 SAFC (1) 2 * M’Vila and Lens snatch a shaky point
August 25 2015: League Cup 2nd round: SAFC (3) 6 Exeter City (3) 3 Young hearts run free in second half
August 22 2015: SAFC (0) 1 Swansea City (1) 1 Gloom lifting after a more determined performance
August 15 2015: SAFC (0) 1 Norwich City (2) 3 I’ve seen some shockers in my time …
August 8 2015: Leicester City (3) 4 SAFC (0) 2 No encouragement to take from this shocker
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Agree Robin , it was those dreadfull 0-0 draws that kept us up last season . Compared to this its looking like a golden age .
Cattermole can turn on that STEEL that defeats any team in the country. And he can be a liability. But he is a local lad, and we need the local lads to rally. As far as I am concerned, born in Peterlee, raised in Hartlepool, took Brian Clough’s autograph as a kid. Footie is my heart and soul. I love all the Teams from the North East. Yes, even Newcatttle. I prefer Sunderland and Boro, but not so keen on the Tyne teams. Although, I am a fan of Lindisfarne.
The defence is the weakest area. So we must play Cattermole in front of that defence. We have weak fullbacks, sadly. But we will need Cattermole ‘On Song’, and he does not look that way at the moment.
Playing 5 men at the back will always (as recent history has shown for Sunderland), that we score less. However, the primary function of any team I would attempt to manage would be to stop shipping goals. Of course the next thing would be to start scoring goals. I am not seeing a lot in our midfield and attack for that.
I would play Rodwell at the moment in the central position, and expect him to regain his form in his second season. The first season syndrome should be over, and I think he will pick up. With Borini & Defoe working together up front, we would be working with a 3 man midfield, that needs the wingers to pull in tight and the fullbacks to push up.
However, I look at things with our team at the moment. We look doomed for relegation for sure.
Advocaat is sticking with a formation and tactics that are costing us on average 3 goals a game .Talented young players arn’t even getting on the bench while the same old failures are recycled season after season . Change it or leave !
I think that Biggy Dicky openly criticising, and naming, individual players signifies the beginning of the end. His time is now limited. A home defeat to West Ham will mean a one way ticket from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Nigel Pearson would be my choice, just ahead of Big Sam.
A bit early to call for Advocaats head. I dont think Advocaat is making any selection or tactical errors.
Its just that the players are not giving 100% and are making silly mistakes. Changing manager won’t alter that.
And, in a few months time we change managers again etc etc etc.
When Dick goes (hopefully at the end of the season having avoided relegation) I would like to see Pearson or Big Sam in.
Pearson would scare the players into giving 100%!
Not calling for his head Ian, I agree that the players are not doing it for him. I just feel that once he starts criticising them they will give even less effort and he will “lose the dressing room”, whatever that means. I think the writing is on the wall, whatever that means. If no improvement is forthcoming and, god forbid, we lose the derby then it’s goodbye to my favourite cloggy.
To lose goals in the last kick before 1/2 time and almost imediately after the restart just shows how mentally week this team is . Couple that with what on the face of it seems a lack of quality compared to everyone else and there will only be one outcome . There are absolutely zero positives in defeat and the club need to stop treating the fans as idiots and cut that crap out at least , even if they cannot change anything on the pitch . I cannot see us beating anyone this season ,we are absolutely useless .