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Last time out Sunderland drew with QPR and Sheffield drew at Middlesbrough.
The Black Cats travel to Bramall Lane to face Sheffield United in the Championship.
Dan Ballard was taken off after 9 minutes with what turned out to be a fractured foot against QPR, and he is unlikely to feature for the Black Cats for quite a few months.
Sheffield United have made a decent start to the season, having lost one, won one and drawn one.
Alex Neil:
"It doesn't look good, he's away to hospital now so we'll see how he is. It's a massive blow, because Dan Ballard is a key player who we have spent money on to improve the squad.
"It just shows where we are because we are light, aren't we, and we have lost a signing that we have brought in."
"As far as I'm concerned they got out of jail. You could see by their celebrations how delighted they were, because based on the 90 minutes I don't think they deserved anything from the game.
"We deserved to win the game, certainly on the way that we played in the first half. They changed their shape in the second half, but once we matched them up with a back four I thought that we, for 15-20 minutes, took the sting out of the game and controlled the ball a bit more, and I could just see the game petering out.
"Two transitions led to two chances, though, if you want to call the free-kick a chance, and they both ended up in the net. I think that we'll see thousands of games across the season where, even if they have better chances than those, we still end up winning the match. Unfortunately, today we ended up on the wrong end of it."
Paul Heckingbottom:
"I enjoyed it. It was a good game, and if I enjoy our intent, generally we’ve done well. We want to be the same away as at home, be aggressive and stand up to everyone, and we’ve come here and tried to take them on. Both teams were trying to win it and both managers probably thought that they should have.
"In the first half we started really well. We played forward, there was an intent, we wanted to set the agenda and got the early goal. We didn’t create enough for the good areas that we got in. I think that Andre (Marriner) should have helped us out a few times, but we were the better team at the start of the second half, we scored and we thought that we’d go on and win.
"We’re disappointed with the goal that we conceded, but credit Boro for coming back and that’s what made it a good game."
"Bill’s (Billy Sharp) done his ankle. He was limping and we tried to strap it, but we can’t get a break with that (injuries). Ozzy (Ben Osborn) did his ankle the other day when we’re trying to manage him and we’re getting niggles that we don’t need. Fingers crossed that Bill’s not too bad, but we won’t know until he settles down."
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Match Appointments:
Referee: JAMES LININGTON
Assistant Referees: Philip Dermott and Andrew Fox
Fourth Official: Oliver Langford
Team Lineups:
Sheffield United (3-5-2): Foderingham, Ahmedhodzic, Egan, Norrington-Davies, Baldock, Berge, Norwood, Fleck, Lowe, Ndiaye, Sharp (C)
Subs: Amissah, Khadra, Doyle, McAtee, Gordon, Brewster, McBurnie
Injured: Osborn
Sunderland AFC: (3-5-2) Patterson, Cirkin, O'Nien, Batth, Neil, Evans, Gooch, Pritchard, Clarke, Stewart, Simms.
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Subs: Bass, Alese, Wright, Matete, Embleton, Diamond, Roberts
Injured: Huggins, Dajaku, Ballard
Betting Odds:
Sunderland 19/5 Sheff Utd 8/11 Draw 13/5
Prutton Predicts: tbc
My two pence:
An excellent start against QPR but we didn’t get what we deserved. Lets hope that we can learn from our mistakes, keep going until the end and nick a point or three in injury time.
United had a tough game against the Boro and their fans also feel like it was 2 points dropped after taking the lead twice. Billy Sharp twisted his ankle and might not be risked.
I’m going for a 2-2 draw
Live Stream:
*** Live on Sky Sports ***
Ha’way the Lads
RTB
