cant disagree with a lot of what you are saying, i dont think all teams have 'roughed us up' in fact i think the gills are one of the teams i thought played some good stuff and that has been a feature for me this season so far...i keep reading posts from opponents telling us how 'sh1te' they are and we should stuff them easy, only for that team to turn up and play some good football. pompey can be discounted by the way, i hope i never see two teams having to play in those conditions ever again, they handled it a damn sight better than we did so deserved the win (i was calling for the game to be abandoned even if the result at the time stood as imho the players were in danger of a serious injury), today from the off it was obvious charlton were not going to sit and try to park the bus in the hope of picking up a point to kick start their season, they came here, played some football and deservedly won while we did little to nothing to try to counter that.
Agree. The start of the season (not just L1 but the cups as well for different reasons), overall, has bee amazing. Points tally is up there with promotion levels, young players blooded in the cups and promising, young players are playing for the shirt, Dan Neil, Embo, Cirkin, Doyle looking superb so far etc. We don't need to hoy the baby out with the bath water here imo.
I said to my 'next door neighbours today', in some ways our play reminded me of the Arsenal of a few years ago... in that we were trying to walk the ball in the net (timid to shoot) and we were sometimes getting bullied off the ball, or not ( apart from Stewart) winning headers or second balls. They on the other hand, in Rugby terms, imposed their physicality. After they scored, a switch was flipped and suddenly we found some strength and pace. So we are capable of matching that style of play but for some reason earlier in the match we didn't. Cirkin my MoM, but too many players had average games.
Were we victims of taking them for granted? Or just not enough strength in depth this thine? Or just not capable of changing when we needed to?
It was my first proper look at Cirkin today, he's a real prospect. I'd go as far to say that he might be the player with the most potential we have in the team. Give him someone ahead of him that he clicks with and who is physically there, McGeady was standing in CM far too often today instead of showing for it out wide, and I think he'll be a cracking LB.
No idea what happened today and ill read this thread properly tomorrow. Ive been and still am on an all day sesh but all i will say is i feel ashamed as i had some none Sunderland supporting friends and family there today expecting to see this great League 1 team like i built them up to be before today giving them the low down on every player. Downside of being an SAFC fan is NEVER get too carried away because you'll get smacked in the face with a big wet fish.
Everton were duffed 5-2 at home by Watford, that's football. I'm not ashamed of a team that can go top next week.
Good questions. Earlier in the day I watched some of the game where Chelsea (top team) were taking Norwich ( bottom team) apart. Today it was top of L1 us and bottom Charlton. We could not do a Chavski, ie impose our game on them and run out easy winners. That tells me we are still very much still getting our act together. Also January transfers could be important to automatic promotion.
As soon as Charlton sacked their manager this week I suspected the result today was basically the toss of a coin.
I said at half time that we were making too many passes in their half, not getting shots in or firing the ball into their box enough. McGeady lost the ball more often than not and O'Nien allowed himself to be drawn into a pointless running battle. Neither threatened the goal in the entire match but the worst of it was that they left Neil with too much graft to do and he was wasted. More lessons to be learned but I'm confident they'll get there.
Yeah its usually the case. Deciding to not even turn up does no favours either though and doesn't bode well for a club like us in a league like this. Like i say im abit oblivious about today i never took my eye off Skysports once on my phone but what im hearing is we were dreadful which is a concern
You're hearing wrong. Charlton couldn't have complained if we'd won the game. We weren't up to our usual standard but certainly not dreadful.
Fair enough mate but 24 hours ago we dared be confident and as per its come back to smack us in the face. You can never get in a good place supporting Sunderland because if/when you do the reality check happens
