Last time out Sunderland lost at Bradford and Accrington drew with Wigan. Sunderland travel to the Wham Stadium to face Accrington Stanley in a pre-season friendly. The Black Cats continued their pre-season build up with a 2-0 loss at Bradford on a sweltering evening in W. Yorkshire. The penultimate game before the Championship game opener a week on Sunday will probably see a more familiar starting line up than the one that we witnessed on Tuesday. Accrington have sold striker Colby Bishop to League One rivals Portsmouth. Stanley have had a good pre-season, beating Stoke and drawing with Palace and Wigan, but they did lose to Preston last weekend. Alex Neil: “I always think that you learn more from a defeat that a win, I think that first half we didn’t carry a threat and that’s why I changed it in the second half. The shape for the first half was good but our use of the ball was poor. I thought that we pressed the ball well, but we didn’t find any rhythm. It was more transitions that they looked more threatening, but we gave possession away which we shouldn’t have done” “In the second half I altered things, changed it. I hadn’t done a lot of work on things with that group and I thought that they looked much more disorganised in the second half, and with that it showed me that the players out of instinct and out of memory, in terms of what we’ve done before, didn’t adapt into the second shape“ “When we tried to press the ball and then when we tried to keep it we didn’t retain it well enough. Yeah, it was a disappointing evening. The lads are naturally disappointed, they know when they played well and didn’t play well, but it’s probably not a bad thing if I’m being brutally honest before the start of the season” "There have been ongoing discussions with numerous players from different clubs, and the minute that we get something across the line, which I can assure you we want to get done as soon as possible, everybody will be made aware” John Coleman: “It was a tough game, they are a good side they have good players, and all of those players won the league last year. We had a few injuries, it was a tough battle for us and I thought that we stood up to it well” “We got better as the game went on. We were a little critical of ourselves at half time, that we didn’t control the ball enough, we didn’t pass the ball forward enough or we didn’t take as much care on the ball as we could have.” “We played a little bit better in the second half, we defended better, we had to defend less. It’s all about getting minutes into the players legs, and a lot of players have got good times in them there.” Expected Teams Sunderland AFC: Patterson, Hume, Ballard, Batth, Cirkin, Evans, Neil, Pritchard, Roberts, Clarke, Stewart Subs: Carney, Gooch, Wright, Alese, Winchester, Matete, O'Nien, Embleton, Sohna, Diamond, Taylor, Kelly, Dajaku. Injured: Huggins Accrington Stanley FC: Jensen, Clark, Astley, Rich-Bagheulou, Sangare, Pritchard, Coyle, Hamilton, McConville, Lowe, Adedoyin Subs: Savin, Whalley, Longelo, Pell, Leigh, Rodgers, Nolan, Conneely, Martin, Procter, Perritt. My two pence: Again I’m expecting lots of changes for this game as we get closer to the opening game against Coventry. I think that the team will look similar to the one that played against Dundee United with a few tweaks. Hopefully we'll have a new signing or two by the weekend. Accrington drew with Wigan in midweek and have looked pretty solid defensively in all of their pre-season games so far. I’m going for a tight 1-0 away win. Live Stream: Supporters who can't attend the match can live stream the game for £7.50. https://www.safc.com/news/team-news/live-video Ha’way the Lads
Good post. I thought I read somewhere that their chairman was stopping us streaming the game? Hope that's not the case.
Said after the play-off final that League 1 Chairmen would be crying in their G&Ts cos of the loss of revenue and the Accrington chairman was very high up in my thoughts over this, he's been a bit of a knob over the big club little club thing, instead of being happy to be playing in a league a few years ago they would only dream of achieving. I wouldn't put it past him re the streaming being a small minded idiot.
Glad we got out of that division of time-wasting cheats, they'll have football done away with. Saying that we'll probably loose now... hopefully we sneak a 2-0 win to the lads
Excellent. Something to watch with a few beers. Hopefully its better stream and performance quality than Bradford.
Playing in the new away kit apparently - according to a few over the road who were at the fans meeting last night. Must be announcing it today if thats the case
Cracking thread as always @RTB More minutes in the legs and work on shape and sharpness. A few goals around the team would be nice as well
Surely one/more of the fringe players will grab the chance to make a real impression otherwise they're not what we need ... ... the likes of Winchester, Matete, Sohna, Diamond, etc, need to go for it and not just treat the game as a training session. Haway Lads, no excuses about heat or adapting to the team/tactics/conditions ... ... this is real and it's your short career.
