Sunderland host Rochdale in League One Last time out in the league Sunderland lost at Burton Albion and Rochdale beat Gillingham. The Black Cats will be looking to bounce back from the defeat at Burton. They will be without striker Charlie Wyke who suffered knee ligament damage. Max Power is still suspended but the good news is that Aiden McGeady is back in training and made his first appearance of the season last weekend. Lee Cattermole is one yellow card away from a one-match ban after picking up 4 bookings from his first 8 games. Rochdale will arrive at the Stadium of Light full of confidence after a very convincing 3-0 defeat of Gillingham with Ian Henderson scoring a hat-trick. After a mixed start to the season Rochdale are improving rapidly and are unbeaten in their last 4 games having won 3 of those. Keith Hill has got his side working their socks off, pressing high and imposing their physical style. Jack Ross: “Unfortunately, he’s had a recurrence of the injury he had in pre-season, If anything, its slightly worse, so we’re now looking at probably between nine and 12 weeks.” “There’s some ligament damage, and although it doesn’t require surgery, he will be in a knee brace for a few weeks. We feel for him because his record over his senior playing career is actually very good in terms of his fitness, but it’s worth pointing out that the second injury is no relation to the first one.” “It’s completely separate and it’s just a bad coincidence that it’s on the same knee and it’s a similar kind of injury, so we’re disappointed because he wants to make a big contribution and he hasn’t had the chance to do that yet.” “It will probably around Christmas time or New Year before we have him available.” “Aiden McGeady has got another full week’s training in, he has been out for four months and he is playing catch-up with every day that passes.” Keith Hill: “We’re looking forward to it, we’re looking forward to playing at the stadium. The pitch will be no different than ours, our pitch is in great form at the minute, it looks superb." “We’ve got to get rid of the sideshows, the psychology, the big stadium. To be fair to Sunderland, they’ve had two terrible seasons, they’re a Premier League side playing League One football," “All they’re going to do now is bounce, whether it’s under Jack Ross, a different manager, whether it's with this group of players or a different group of players, they won’t be playing League One football for long.” Match Appointments: Referee: TREVOR KETTLE Assistants: Geoffrey Liddle and Simon Clayton Fourth Official: David Avent Team Line ups Sunderland: McLaughlin, Baldwin, Loovens, Flanagan, Oviedo Cattermole, Honeyman, Gooch, Maja, Sinclair, Maguire. Substitutes: Ruiter, Ozturk, Hume, O’Nien, McGeouch, McGeady, Mumba Injured: Watmore, Wyke Suspended: Power Rochdale: Lillis, Rafferty, Hart, McGahey, Delaney, Camps, Rathbone, Henderson, Wilbraham, Andrew, Gillam. Substitutes: Moore, Matheson, McNulty, Adshead, Perkins, Williams, Done. Injured: Randall Betting Odds: H 10/11 A 29/10 D 13/5 My two pence: We really do need to stop conceding early goals and learn to defend set pieces. After last week’s team selection, I really have no idea what to expect, although we will have one striker less to choose from. Maybe this is the game to start with 3 at the back, play Oviedo and Gooch as the wing backs with Maja, Sinclair and Maguire up front. My guess is a nervy 2-1 home win. Ha’way the Lads
Great post as always....McGeady good for second half as Hume I'm hoping. Really like that lad. Back to winning ways for me....2 - 0 Maja and Sinclair.
I'm back over for this match with my son and well looking forward to it. Hope for a reaction from the players after getting beat last week. C'moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon!
sub Mcgeady ? whyEasy away win for Rochdale, the refs bottle it in this league and we are crap. Went to the Oxford and Fleetwood games since Sheff w and nowt has changed stop bulling us up man.
Bit nervous about this one tbh. Seems every team we come up against atm is starting on a great run. Hope he’s sorted this early start bollocks out.
A bit of pressure on to get back to winning ways. we've got the tools to do it just need to deliver, I'll settle for 1-0.
1-0 will do, but if we can get off to a good start, and yes, it is possible, we could well have the feel good factor back by 5'o'clock , and with Max returning to midfield the following game things would begin to look a lot brighter. However if Jack is tempted to pick that team I would be seriously worried.
Have we got the defence to deliver a clean sheet, on the evidence so far it seems highly doubtful, we have one decent defender, the rest are either too slow or not consistent enough, on top of that we have our only quick defensive mid fielder suspended. I would like to know what our best line up is, the all out offensive strategy did not work last time out so it will be interesting to see if Jack has the bottle or even the players to repeat it.
Christ I hope so, it's not getting silly now it got silly a month ago. I don't expect us to never concede again but the pattern of us only waking up after going one down is unsustainable.
I think we do, it's a team from scratch organisation can be difficult while players are getting to know each other. But expect extra work to have gone into sorting this and it's about time improvements were seeing.
Thats really a tough question as I have already mentioned, but I think I would use OzTurk at the back, not that I am any fan of his but if we go three at the back I would have him in their with Baldwin and Loovens, simply because I do not rate the alternatives, and he should be useful on set pieces . Until we get Power back I would like to see someone in there to help Catts out, niether McGeoch or Honeyman look comfortable in this role, as I say, tough question and I am struggling to answer it tbh. That second eleven looks a lot better imo.
What would your team be then Bri, your selections are always interesting and well reasoned, unlike some of mine no pressure eh.
I wouldn't mind seeing Mumba given a game while Power is out and maybe when he's back too, he's looked like the equal of Catts and better than McGeough.
Wow , this is brave, I see something special in this lad too, as I do in Denver Hume, but I feel the pressure is beginning to return and the time is not quite right, but who knows, its always a gamble.
