Match Day Thread Stoke City v Sunderland AFC – Saturday 21st October 2023 - KO 15:00

I know a lad who’s a Stoke fan, for what it’s worth he thinks they are **** and awful to watch, plus he doesn’t like Alex Neil.

I’d take attractive attacking football with a few bumps in the road any day of the week.

 

Sat here reflecting on today's performance and still can't get my head around TM starting the match with no CF, despite having 3 of them on the bench??

Bizarre......

 

Agreed. Just lost my **** for an hour or so post match. All good now

 

That’s me every time we lose mate

 

That used to be me, but with a wannabe Stone Island radgee 16yo son I'm trying to show best practice

 

Don’t it still hurts

 

Yeah that’s a bit worrying, I get that some have just come back from international duty but no different to coming back from a midweek game.

Also get that some are returning from injury but if they are fit enough for the bench they are for enough for 45 minutes…and we had enough strikers to swap one at half time if needed.

A change should have happened at half time. Ba for a striker, then move Roberts to the right allowing Pritchard to drop deeper. We had nothing in the middle.

I’m sure he had his reasons but I can’t see them.

 

And then hoying them all on late on as if the benefits of a CF had only just occurred to him. I'm a Mowbray fan but he does make some odd decisions.

I think we should start every game with a recognised CF. I don't really give a **** if we think they're only 85/90% ready, we've got some canny looking forwards and it's better than playing people out of position. Cameo appearances aren't going to help Rusyn and Hemir they need time on the pitch.

I'd wager that if we started against Leicester with those two up top they'd do some damage. Certainly better than playing a winger up there on his own.

 

Still worries me how long it’ll be before the “boo boys” return. There are rumblings already on social of the type. If they start getting on the young lads back, the likes if Clarke, Bellingham etc simply walk away I think. It’s all well and good when you have experienced players, but youngsters I think will take it hard if those vocal few in our crowd start booing them

 

Todays high performance sports are all run on stats. How many miles you have run, how many shots, how many times you scratch your ass. Stats for todays game would tell us the three strikers on the bench none have scored. Two of them have just moved to this country. Clearly they need more time to adapt. Three games a week now so plenty of game time for all. The leagues top scorer was in the front three for us. Ba has scored a couple this season and keeps deserving a run out as he is producing more so than others. The team to me was fine and I for one happy to go with it. Certainly understood the logic behind it. Our top scorer scored again. Non of the three on the bench scored when they came on at various parts of the game. We are still a work in progress and like I have said before there will be some ups and downs. The league isn’t won in October and also it isn’t lost. The last couple of games we have had some things not go for us. Neil sending off and todays first goal for Stoke ffs. The worst thing that could happen now after all the progress has been made is that we self destruct. Negativity breeds negativity. TM didn’t pick a team to lose today. So called supporters are fickle natured at best when there quick to criticize. To me your on board for the 46 games that will get us back in our rightful place. Bitching and moaning after a dozen games doesn’t look good and god forbid if the home crowd starts turning on these young lads. Let’s all put our big boy pants on and save any criticism for the end of the season if needed. Me as I have already said we will win the league. If we don’t get there then we will be second. The club today is amazing compared with what we have had in the past. Let’s all do our bit for team Sunderland that includes the boss and board. HTL!!!!

 

Mowbray won’t take us up. Under pressure soon imo.

 

Totally agree mate, I actually go red with embarrassment reading the comments of some of the so called fans on here.

 

I wonder if some of the negativity comes from how great we were looking, to a couple of bad defeats that have been a reality check.

People deal with it in different ways and take longer to bounce back.

I think we all agree that the club is in terrific shape. It’s just that the journey to becoming a great team will take a bit longer than most of us hoped for.

 

Social media is a bad place to look for reading fan reactions. Tend to find most of the people who are over the top with their reactions don’t actually go to the games anyway

 

I wonder if they remember what they wrote yesterday and put their head under the pillow and refuse to come out

 

Well said!

 

When the team was announced most would have thought Huggins & Ballard fit...big tick
Ekwah and Pritch back big tick
We've played so long without a striker we've learned to cope so I wasn't concerned.
Lose the first goal to a handball and the second from a corner, which seems to be our Achilles heel despite having Ballard, he can't mark all their big lads on his own.
We had most possession, most shots on target and despite not being at our best didn't deserve to lose that game, yet TM gets pelters and it's all his fault.
Not saying Mowbray is beyond criticism but come on lads.
Some strange fans follow our club.OaU..

 

This team have been great to watch, probably my favourite Sunderland team and Mowbray has done a very good job but they’re allowed to be criticised from time to time. I honestly thought that was a shocking performance, the amount of unforced errors was ridiculous, the manner of the 2 goals conceded was really poor. Not playing a striker was bizzare, every time we played it forward we lost it, to not change it for as long as Mowbray did was even worse. Just a really bad day at the office for me, work to be done because you aren’t going up if you play inconsistently as we have so far this season.

 

The good news is most of the social media voices don’t go to the game, as evidenced by them posting during home games.

For me it’s the fact not so much Leicester but Ipswich having such a flier has made it seem worse to some. Look at the quality of sides we are above and similar too, we are about right for where we should be.

I do agree with the concerns in some parts. I’d be playing a striker every game regardless, I am concerned that some games we start blank and stay blank, but I can’t get on board with a current need for change.

If any manager was right all the time he’d not be managing outside the PL. I’d only accept a change for a mind blowing appointment as Mogga relationship with the players is evidently massive in how we are developing them.

If we get Amad back January, which we know is a real possibility, then we are way stronger than last season for the second half, that’s fact.

We are better placed than same stage last season and that’s without a striker scoring yet, those 2 factors will change the whole complexion.

We just need to stay together, fans and player and manager and get to January.

We will be alright. The wheels didn’t come off after 2 games.

 

A very disappointing day football wise but a nice catch up with friends again but that was a game we should not have lost. A poor performance right throughout the team. We played badly but still had chances to win the game. Ba scores before half time and I think we would have done. Not the starting team I would have picked but whatever team is picked we get behind them. We'll done to all supporters yesterday who got there despite difficult travelling conditions and a plethora of cancelled trains making journeys long and frustrating. Oh and Stoke are a very poor team and it's a ****hole. Keep the faith lads and lasses. Things will take a turn for the better.