First game of the season for me tomorrow. Looking forward to it, 50 mins up the motorway. I would like to see Roberts back in personally. Ba has done well and I like him, but Roberts has more to offer in a game where we are likely to be faced with another defensive side who would take a point. I would persevere with Burstow personally. I think he is getting in good positions and probably needs one chance to fall nicely. Adil cant be far off a start, maybe in place of pritchard? Id probably stick with Pritchard again personally.
He normally does well against them My team would be: Patto Hume o9 ballard huggins Neil jobe Robert Adil clarke Burstow Feel against an aging team like them rusyn n pritchard will kill them coming off the bench Adil looks class and id love to see him from the start Burstow hasnt been great but we saw with Amad n Ekwah last season that getting a run of games can unlock the potential in these lads I have to admit i hate games like this, sheff wed will get a 1st win of the season (at some point) and in a weird way they have nothing to lose. We are expected to beat them, as player for player we are better but football has a funny way of throwing a spanner in the works
Get a goal and we'll run away with it when they have to come out and attack us. Fear that if we don't score early it will follow a similar pattern to sunday.
Some decent prices for tomorrow night guys. Sunderland to score over 1 goal = 6/5 A race to two goals - Sunderland = 13/8 Sunderland to score second half = 8/11 Wiliam Hill
Interesting to see a vote for Burstow upfront, he's behind Hemir and Rusyn for me. Hemir doesn't work as hard but (I think) he holds it up and lays it off better and makes better runs. Rusyn I presume was signed to be our number one CF and he looked sharp as a Stanley knife the other night. I'm in no way writing Burstow off it's far too early to consider doing that, but from the little I've seen of all three I've seen the least from him. Also the other two are our players for what it's worth.
I think Hemir's lack of pressing is what's costing him. Its the off the ball stuff rather than on the ball. The press is so important to how we play and the lone striker is huge in initiating that. Agree Rusyn will probably end up first choice but think he will get eased in slowly. It was very interesting that Hemir came on ahead of him last weekend
I agree I think Hemir should be working harder and chasing down lost causes, hopefully we can coach it into him. I did notice against Cardiff though that he was more effective in the brief time he had than Burstow despite all the graft he put in.
Busy day at the office, as suspected it looks like Ekwah is not ready to play yet so I've updated the predicted starting 11 After watching the u21 game I'm going for Rusyn and Aouchiche to start. Bennette on the bench.
I was told Rusyn was miles off our standard of match fitness, so not only paperwork, not match fitness held him back.
Rusyn will be 1st choice once up to speed, i feel burstow is ahead of hemir at the minute. The service hasnt been great to him 1st couple of games, mainly down to us not being used to a striker - hopefully tonight is the night he scores tho
I think Roberts will get the nod to start tonight he has looked sharp off the bench and brings something a little different to the team plus his first touch is sublime and retaining possession in their half of the pitch and the ability to beat their defensive set up will prove crucial to this game. Plus I think he will score a couple tonight just got a feeling in me watta as me owld Nanna used to say.
https://x.com/champchatpod24/status/1707655274431950961?s=46&t=bFwez-5oi7CdxUG56_1QKg Chaos behind the scenes at Wednesday
His statement just shows that he just doesnt get what a football club means to its true fans n the communities they represent
