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

Having slept on it and read some of the comments on social media, it does appear things are turning and a defeat mid week might see it get louder.

You can't blame the manager for players not being able to complete passes, which we suffered from terribly yesterday across the whole team.

I've seen people saying TM just threw subs on without a thought, but it was clear to me Dack went as a 10, Rusyn right wing and Burstow up front. Hardly throwing people on randomly, then when really chasing it, Hemir as a second Striker and Adil as another attacking 10.

Yes defeats hurt, but we all need to show some patience and accept with young players there will be inconsistency

 

Oh I agree, but we all know there’s a very vocal minority who will boo for the sake of it.

Fir all the “Boro was Mowbray’s fault” brigade we have on here and social, I can’t remember the last time a team got clapped from the field after a 4-0 “derby! loss. Everyone left in the stadium clapped everyone on our side.

that is what the young players need. Not booing when the crowd forget just how good thing have and can be

 

Yep. Whatever we did right or wrong, we had enough chances.

That's what it comes down to again. We seem to need a lot of chances to score.

 

I must be too positive, I watched yesterday thinking we played poorly, with some lovely little moves at times, but a 3-2 win wouldn’t have flattered us. 2-1 flattered them as they were atrocious. On to Tuesday. As Lockey says, OaU

 

It's a curious one, is it confidence or pressure or just bad luck?

When we did actually string passes together stoke where chasing shadows.

Fine margins in this league and the last 2 games we haven't had them fall our way.

Maybe I try and look for positives too much, but some of the ****e I have read during and after yesterday's game is embarrassing imo

 

I don't actually feel 'things are turning' and that's my honest opinion. I just think people are naturally cheesed off after a poor result against a rotten route one side.

I'd much rather have won but I'm pleased I'm not having to watch Stoke every week ...

... we'll have the chance to play football on Tuesday, I think we will and the mood will be different on Wednesday.

BTW, met up with, or bumped into, a fair few off the board, great lads and a pleasure to be amongst ... great support again.

 

We’ve a very young team and with it comes inconsistency. A bad performance can happen with any team, two in a row more likely with a young team. They’ll bounce back and once we have Ekwah, Neil and Jobe back together. As for TM his role isn’t just results but development of the squad, come Christmas and a lot of summer signings are coming into the team and getting starts is the time I think he’ll be judged by Speakman and KLD. Unless a coach we really want becomes available he’s safe for me. There’s no way this squad is ready for the prem if we get promoted once you take out Clarke and one of Ballard or Neil for funds to reinvest. Said at start of season that playoffs again would be success but with a squad much stronger and ready for a big push next season.

 

And Ballard we would struggle without him more than any other player atm.

 

Think the reason I was so pissed off is they done a number on us at home and he never changed a thing during that game.
as soon as I seen the team I just knew it was gona go exactly the same way and you could see after 10 minutes it wasn’t working yet he stuck with the same tactics far too long, hoping it was just a bad day at the office.

don’t him responsible for the Boro game at all the ref ****ed that game imo.

 

I don't mind a manager switching the team about. I don't mind a manager matching players againt othe opposing players either.

But why switch both fullbacks again after it failed against Boro?

Also, we seemed to look a little disjionted and pedestrian in mifield at times for some reason.

We had plenty of time to prepare for this game, considering the International break etc..

I can't complain too much about not starting with a striker as we played quality football last year without one.

However, considering playing Roberts in the centre, and Ba on the right wasn't working, why on earth did TM persevere for so long?

The crowd demanded substitutions way way before it happened.

Imho at the start of the second half, we should have switched the fullbacks, put Roberts back on the right, and brought on an orthodox striker.

But then again, everyone else seemed to think the same thing too..

Very strange...

 

& Ballard

 

That’s 5 defeats and against teams we should be beating if we are targeting the playoffs, I’m always optimistic but I’m telling myself to be realistic now. Yesterday showed that experience does matter and we need some up front desperately. On our day we can match anyone in this league but we can’t do it consistently and especially at home. I always give credit when it’s due but on this occasion the players & staff let the support down yesterday. Robert’s form is worrying and maybe his contract has something to do with it, let’s try and stay around the top 7 or 8 and with Amad possibly coming back in January we may kick on again, none of our centre forwards have notched yet, that’s got to change sooner than later but he’s got to play them !!!

 

And Jack Clarke

 

What if they aren’t scoring in training?

 

I would be questioning why we signed them

 

I have waited overnight to give my opinion of yesterday not blurt out something irrational. for quite a while big Tone was pleading for a striker. yesterday against one of the poorest teams in the division he decided to play without one, had 3 on the bench. Twice now he has come up against them and fecked it up both times.
Tony please choose what you consider the best formation and stick with it home and away no matter who against, and stop this crazy policy of yours of changing formations to suit the oppo. Play to our strengths and let the oppo worry about us.

 

Official Highlights
2 mins:

Extended:

Full 90:

Post match analysis:

 

We are a better squad of football players than Stoke but as predicted they pressed us in key areas - forced errors on us eg 09, Jobe, and halted our passing game at source forcing errors and because we had no one up top running the channels we had no outlet. I do think that not playing a striker to hit made possession for us more difficult. We can’t be purist against everyone and need to mix it up. That said Neil’s extra bit of experience yesterday with Jobe pressing higher might have swung it so it was partly due to availability.

 

TM got it wrong not starting with a striker but wtf is it with a handball not getting pulled up for the first goal, I haven’t seen a replay it it was blatant as ****.

 

From the Sunderland echo:

‘Sunderland also had a late appeal for a penalty when Clarke was challenged by Ki-Jana Hoever in the third minute of stoppage time. The Stoke defender did appear to bring Clarke down, yet it was unclear if the winger had control of the ball, which went behind for a goal-kick, after an attack down the left.”

Ah. So you need control of the ball when you get kicked by a defender fir it to be a foul.

using that statement, O’Nien and Ballard should just kick the opposition players when they don’t have the ball.