Thought he was quite fair as it goes. Early doors he let Baldwin off with a definite yellow and one of their players exactly the same. There were a handful of decision he got wrong but that happens in every game. Don't think the ref had an awful game by any stretch, I prefer to look at what we could have done differently/better than blaming it all on the officials.
He's better than that!!! James is OK as a left back to have in your squad but I think Hume is destined for bigger than us. Reads the game so well and his passing is next level. I'd go as far as to say he's a better left back than Oviedo too! First name on the sheet once he's fully fit (Takes a great pen too iirc)
You really want to go down that road? I thought barring the odd challenge it was alright. I could quite easily point to your players time wasting by going down on several occasions at 70 minutes to try and stall our momentum or Pitman when clean through at 1-1 had his shirt pulled back which enabled your keeper to get to the ball first and clear it. I didn't think it worth discussing as overall I thought it was tit for tat in an occasion where both teams gave 100%.
Curtis was an awful tackle - would've seen red in most games anywhere in this country (on Morgan I think) Then McGeady was kicked from pillar to post second half and got very little protection. Can't remember him getting a free kkick. Agree about the early 2 - one was Curtis and the other was Baldwin - both bog standard yellows which he let go - but the Curtis one on Morgan was a potential leg breaker
Completely agree. I thought it was great, people just there to enjoy the occasion and hope their team edges it. That first half was so bad from our point of view. It was almost men against boys and harked back to some of our League 2 performances. The only good thing from our point of view was the fact you only got the one goal although I thought we did defend well - you just outplayed us, better tactics and midfield were just getting overrun. I do feel if you had unlocked the defense one more time and gone in 2-0 we would not have come back from that. Penalties are horrendous. Great if you win them, savage if you don't.
totally missed my point - I was commending it - You had to stop McGeady - you couldn't take the ball off him so your players systematically fouled his second half. As I say - do what you need to get the result as if you hadn't, chances are we'd have beaten you
That's just crazy talk. We were relentless from the second half onwards - you barely had any of the play. We would have lost if we hadn't have kicked McGeady? Come on mate.
Why is it? It's a tactic that has been used for years - target the oppos main man and kick him - pass him on to the next player - heard Danny Murphy do a talk in in a club once saying exactly that about Liverpool. If you'd let McGeady play the game he did in the first half we'd have seen a lot more attacking play in the second - and, as a result, I honestly think we'd have won the game! We fed him the ball early on second and your defender or midfielder kicked him. Fed him again and it happened again - 6 or 7 times early in the second half. We were relentless in the first half and should've comfortably been well ahead by half time. Extra time was quite even and a draw overall was probably the right result. Just wish it wasn't penalties that decided it
i said let's see what happens in the 2nd half but please not another Man c or Liverpool and lo and behold !.7 on the trot now and i believe we will never win at wembley again sadly, one up front is a disaster, they played like this a few years ago and was terrible to watch, get back to 4-4-2 start Wyke and Grigg up front and get them playing together and stay with the formation for the last 9 matches, i still think we can finish 2nd as long as our players don't get kicked about (Wycombe etc) the players better realise we DO NOT want play offs and go through another defeat, so get at Accy and Rochdale first and win them games and by next Tues/Sat/Fri we finally should be above (jammy) Barnsley.
Grigg reminds me a lot of Steven Fletcher in that he has a knack of always being in the wrong place at the right time, ie behind the defenders rather than in front of them in the box when crosses are delivered. He has looked very peripheral since joining us, and I am starting to worry for him. For one reason or another he has not hit the ground running and has sadly looked no replacement for Maja so far. He was not to blame in any way for our cup defeat, this for me was down to poor substitutions by the manager, but this may have been down to fitness as much as anything, as he does seem to bring back players and expect too much of them too soon, and this has been costly once or twice this season imo.
In summary, we won the first half, they won the second half, the first half of ET was ****e and they won the first 10 mins of the 2nd half of ET. Overall, I'd say they edged it, but penalties is always a lottery, so what went before didn't really matter. Great day out for both sets of fans in front of 85,021! Now to catch Barnsley, because the play-offs will be more than my heart can stand...
I think the theory is we pay him a lot of money to put the ball in the back of the net. Certainly a free 'pop' at goal with just the goalkeeper to beat. Should be bread and butter stuff to him and what I was really looking for is his mindset to take it. Yes, you can miss or the goalkeeper saves it but not taking one surely in terms of his own belief if I was him I would have wanted to take the first one. Especially with the opposition fans just behind the goal. The opportunity to score and put the finger up is something I couldn't have resisted....it shows me about him a 'faint heart'. As I mentioned earlier disappointed with Honeyman too.....captain and leader....got to take one in my book. The lad has goals in him so strange to me. Catts missed but I don't see much 'stick' for lad and rightfully so. He stood up to be counted for. He didn't hide like others...
Wyke isn't really the sort of player that takes penalties. You very rarely see target man centre forwards take penalties. Niall Quinn, for example. never took a penalty (according to Transfermarkt) and certainly never scored one (according to premier league.com). I wouldnt have expected him to take one. Cattermole played very well, and has been very good all season, but I'm not surprised he missed his penalty. He might have had the stones to take one (for which he should be commended) but I wouldn't have asked him to take one if I was Ross. The way he addresses the ball is awkward and unorthodox and he doesn't have the ability to disguise where he's going to put the ball. The keeper would have known exactly where he was going to put it from the moment he started his run up.
Yeah, it was Hawkins. But he looks like he's better from dead ball situations. Wyke, like Quinny, just doesn't look like the kind of player who'd going to be good with the dead ball.
Was an excellent game !! Sunderland were by far the better team in the first half, and deserved to be ahead at the break. We were by far the better team in the second half, and extra time. Both sets of fans were fantastic, backing their teams all the way. Was the best atmosphere I have ever witnessed at a match !
