What is it about Sunderland? That’s what poor old Nick Barnes was asking on BBC Radio Newcastle just before he spilt tea down Simon Pryde’s back. Other teams put out much-changed teams for the Capital One Cup and still romp to victory against lower league opponents. Sunderland fail, even against other weakened sides. At half time, Pete Sixsmith was beside himself with barely suppressed rage: “We will do well to win a game this season.” Listening to Barnes and Benno, I wondered whether even Messi would struggle to succeed in our colours. Then, after 75 appalling, embarrassing minutes for any Sunderland supporter, 0-2 was suddenly 1-2, 2-2, 3-2 and finally 4-2. Exciting stuff, albeit only at the end. And PDC still has plenty to ponder. But credit to Connor Wickham for his two-goal burst, to Jozy Altidore for breaking his duck to start the late comeback and to Adam Johnson for a cracking fourth. Was Pete impressed? Read on. This is the place to find his instant seven-word verdicts on the many games he attends …
(2013-2014)
August 27 2013 Capital One Cup 2nd Round: SAFC (0) 4 MK Dons (1) 2
Outplayed, outclassed, somehow got out of jail
August 24 2013 Southampton (0) 1 SAFC (1) 1
The point was better than the performance
August 17 2013 SAFC (0) 0 Fulham (0) 1 Ultimately little difference from previous two seasons
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Team selection all wrong in my humble opinion. It’s too early in the season to be messing about. This is a new team and they will need time to gel, to understand each other. Therefore the recognised first 11 need to play as often as possible. Decide what that is, and play them.
Should read one trick…..damn the fat fingers
Has PDC got fat fingers ?
Drummer, I just wondered if the first half last night was better or worse than the 2nd half against Villa which for me was the worst SAFC performance I can recall. I accept that my recall isn’t what it use to be. I’m not the man I used to be. Then again I never was the man I used to be. If last night’s 1st half was indeed worse it’s very worrying. The Ji substitution timing won’t help. The carrot and the stick…..without the carrot. Is PDC a one-tricky managerial pony?
Considering that the Villa debacle was away to the former and not too long ago European champions it probably was worse. Wasn’t at the Villa game but I saw it on tv, was there last night and it was just two extremes in one game.As for Di Canio, who knows?
Ji was awful. Di Canio may have learned already that his current faith in him is misplaced. That said the jeers he got when subbed were pathetic, why do league cup games attract the worst type of fans?
Plus side Johnson played well and Altidore got off the mark.
Other than that I agree with everything Pete said, and feel Di Canio needs a little less conversation, a little more action. Starting at Palace. Please!
Great comeback and hopefully it wakes us up as a team as I can honestly say the first 75 minutes were the worst I have ever witnessed as a Sunderland supporter. Hopefully we play like we did in the last 15 from now on because if we revert to the first 75 minutes non performance we won’t get 15 points
The margins between success and failure,, victory and defeat, elation and despair seem to grow closer with every passing season and with every management change.
I posted to blackcats at half time asking, whether less than two weeks into the season it was too early to consider the whole PDC regime a disaster?
I want him to do well and laud his lack of perseverance with the dross and misfits that we had been lumbered with. All the effort in the world won’t make up for a lack of talent.
The level of uncertainty we are faced with is unprecedented. We don’t know if we have a team and we still don’t really know whether Paolo is a manager. We signed 11 players in the summer and the only one I’d heard of was Altidore and he was crap when he was at Hull.
I’m getting too old for all of this!
Any of us who thought that this much need revolution was going to pay dividends from day one were being unrealistic.
I think we need to be patient and should be thinking in terns of evolution and not revolution. I suspect it will be closer to Xmas before our new players bed in we fans can become comfortable with our new team .
For now it really is a case of keeping the faith with PDC and his team, and also acknowledging that the owner deserves our support as well for being brave enough to try and improve the club in such a radical way.
Isn’t there some saying about fortune favouring the brave?
I listened a bit on the radio Sounded like we had a very bad first half. Even Cabral didn’t seem to be playing well.
Two good positives for me from this result: Altidore gets off the mark, Fletch is on the bench! Yay, – welcome back m’laddie.
Ji was subbed at 47mins. Why not take him off at half time instead of subjecting him to a few boos? Not the best man management PDC in this case. Ji is a bit timid and underconfident to begin with.
Other positives were: Wickham getting a confidence-boosting brace, and Crystal Palace getting beat (their confidence taking a hit hopefully)
We were terrible. We have problems from grass roots upwards. Why why why can’t we change!!!!