You mean when the whole team was ****e? Daft to judge a player from that time. Evans looked poor in league one but it wasn't a true reflection.
Peoples opinion , its not an obsession as you call it., and they are perfectly entitled to theirs as you are to yours.
My recollection is people only starting rating him when we were in the championship and playing well. Either way as I say it's daft to judge a player when you've only seen them play in a team that was awful as a unit. Not that he was as bad in midfield as people make out, a lot of the criticism was because he had too much on his plate due to others not doing their job.
The longer Evans is missing the better he gets, even so a fit Evans is only a temporary sticking plaster imo., we need better options again imo. (For general imo stands for "in my opinion" , nothing more.
Thanks mate, your right as usual. PS my mental arithmetic was only matched by my spelling pre spellckheck .
Personally don’t think O’Nien as defensive midfield is the answer, and I don’t think the club do either. That said, I don’t think there is a reason not to try it at the moment.
I understand what you are saying and to some extent agree but I just keep seeing us trying to find space in a very congested 18 yard box and feel we need to try and make the pitch wider to create the space for Clarke or Adil etc to operate in. Pritch does this really well and will offers us something different the trouble we have at the moment is our passing and movements seem slow because there is no space for the midfield to operate which is making it difficult to play the quick expansive football we are capable of and that is really down to the manager to solve.
I would play Rigg personally, alongside Neil. The lad has all the talent, and plenty of bite about his game. Patterson Hume, ballard, Onien, Huggins Neil, Rigg Ba, Pritch, Clarke Burstow
This is how i'd go, though with Adil in place of Pritch. Don't think we need to drastically change how we play we just need to get back to how we were doing it earlier in the season. Play to our strengths which is a high tempo attacking game.
Very similar to what I would play. I do think Ekwah needs to play himself out of this poor patch so I might be tempted to have him in instead of Rigg in a double pivot with Dan Neil. I agree completely with Ba and Pritchard, Roberts has been very poor and Pritchard was the only one who managed to get between their two banks of four on Wednesday night so I would start him in instead of Jobe.
Another very good option as usual and just shows we have plenty', its important that we let our homegrown players see they are not forgotten and can stilll can climb that ladder even though we have such a strong and eclectic mix on the books. For me this is a season of organisation, consolidation and growth , a play-off place maybe, a cup run perhaps but nothing more. This is a very tough league and we wont see too many walkovers, nice as they are, its not the same as giving up all hope, its being realistic imo.
Great thread as always RTB. Thanks again. Off down early to this one, with son grandson and son in law. Driving due to bloody rail strike. Always seems to be a difficult place to go for us but we are due a response from the players. Head says draw heart says tight away win. Keep the faith lads and lasses.
I expect us to get back on track with a 2-3 away win. Millwall are good in the air, so they will probably go very direct and will be a big threat when taking set pieces, but we create plenty of chances so I'm expecting us to knick this one. HWTL
Although I really like O9, sadly, I have to agree with you. He has played a lot of games in our midfield earlier in his Sunderland career, but rarely impressed and often gave away stupid free kicks with his petulance and lack of pace. IMO, his best position is in central defence.
Great thread @RTB thank you for doing them. I'd love to see us try 433 with a few more quicker long balls to get the defence turned and us higher up the pitch. I believe we will see a positive reaction tomorrow from the players and staff, it will be tough but I reckon we will knick it 1-2
