Sunderland travel to Rotherham in the Championship. Last time out Sunderland won at Hull and Rotherham beat the Boro at home. The Black Cats leaped above Hull City into the play-off places with a great goal from Jack Clarke. Bradley Dack is likely to miss this game due to injury along with Niall Huggins. Evans, Alese and Cirkin remain unavailable. Michael Beale will rest his players and has a short turn around to prepare for another away day. Rotherham are bottom of the league and are 9 points from safety despite a 1-0 victory at home to Middlesbrough on Boxing Day, the Millers first victory since October. Cohen Bramell’s fortunate cross-shot was enough to claim a valuable 3 points despite Boro spurning chance after chance. Mike Beale: "I knew it would be a tough game and that we hadn't won away from home for a long time, but I thought we should have won by more. "We missed some big chances. Some of our interplay was good and it was just whether we could execute that in the final third. "I'm absolutely delighted with the mentality of the side. That's a big, big positive, but the big thing for me is that we need consistency. We must back it up against Rotherham. "Leam Richardson: "The credit needs to go to the players. I class it as three games in charge and, with the work ethic and level of performance they have shown, they have deserved that little bit of luck. "We are low on bodies and we have players playing out of position. Some are having to do things that are quite foreign to them. "But it's a choice to tackle, head and run back and stay connected to your team-mates with recovery runs. We have that in abundance. "We were a little bit passive first half. We don't want to be like that. We have front-footed players. But the harder you work, the luckier you get." Match Appointments: Referee: TONY HARRINGTON Assistant Referees: Richard West & Marc Perry Fourth Official: Tom Nield Team Lineups: Sunderland AFC: (4-2-3-1) Patterson, Hume, Ballard, O’Nien, Seelt, Neil, Ekwah, Clarke, Pritchard, Roberts, Rusyn. Subs: Bishop, Triantis, Mayenda, Ba, Aouchiche, Pembele, Rigg, Burstow, Jobe. Injured: Evans, Cirkin, Huggins, Matete, Alese, Dack Rotherham (5-3-2) Johansson, Lembikisa, Odoffin, Morrison, Revan, Bramall, Lindsay, Tiéhi, Rathbone, Hugill, Nombe Subs: Ribeiro Dias, Clucas, Eaves, Kelly, Phillips, Appiah, McGuckin Injured: Peltier, Hall, Green, Blackett, Onyedinma, Humphreys, Ferguson. Match Facts: Rotherham United have won their last two home league games against Sunderland, scoring seven goals and conceding two in these two wins. Sunderland are looking to complete a league double over Rotherham for the first time since the 2004-05 campaign. Rotherham United have lost their final league match in each of the last three calendar years since a 4-0 win over Peterborough United in 2019. Sunderland haven’t lost their final league game in any of the last six calendar years (W4 D2) since losing 4-1 to Burnley in 2016 in the Premier League. Jobe Bellingham netted twice against Rotherham United in Sunderland’s 2-1 win in August – the last Black Cats player to score home and away against the Millers in a season was Dean Whitehead in 2004-05. Betting Odds: Sunderland 4/7 Rotherham 19/4 Draw 3/1 Prutton Predicts: 0-1 My two pence: Mike Beale was a lot happier with his team’s response against Hull finding a way to win away from home and keeping a clean sheet. We need a similar performance here and hope for a bit more luck than Boro got on Tuesday. Rotherham are rock bottom and they have conceded lots of goals recently, anything but a win would be disappointing to say the least. I’m going for a 0-2 away win. Live Stream: Available to home & overseas fans: https://safc.com/news/team-news/live-video Ha’way the Lads
Fancy us strongly to beat them by a couple.of clear goals. He said he will be using the squad so I expect a couple of fresh faces in there especially with Dack getting injured. Would.like to see Pritch come in and get Rigg back on the bench with an eye to getting him on the pitch. Do sharks worry about Rotherham? No.....
Rotherham are ****e. 3 points is an absolute must. Me and 3 others heading down in the car. Love night games on the road.
A busy period for you too RTB, so thanks again for your amazing match threads I'm expecting us to win this one comfortably 0-3. Got a feeling that MB will play a CF in this one, probably Rusyn, so I hope he can find the onion bag!
hopefully we carry on from yesterday and get another 3 points paid my tenner to watch with Frankie and Danny
We’re getting a bit short on options up front with Dack out and Jobe probably getting a first half rest so we might have no choice other than to play a striker between Clarke and Roberts.
I’m at this one but could only get the one ticket so if anyone has a spare or knows of one going please give me a shout
Great thread as always @RTB Such a short turn round between games, you would expect some changes, but that's not clear cut. Must be such a hard job for the coaches, medical team, physios with games so close together. Think we will have more than enough for them and a comfortable 0-3 with at least striker getting on the scoresheet
I think I’d go Aouchiche for Roberts on the right. They go long ball, knock down, runner from midfield picking up the pieces, if we stop that we win on playing better football so not sure exactly what, maybe should have Seelt in the middle as extra height and physicality for the direct balls maybe 3 at the back or one in the hole. The shortage of full backs/ wing backs is a problem though which is why I’m not sure how else we do it.
If I remember correctly we went to Wigan this time last year, made a lot of changes because of the xmas fixtures and made mincemeat out of a relegation fodder team. Hopefully the same again this year.
Don’t forget, it’s the same for Rotherham. We have a large squad and many of our options are first team players such as Aouchiche and Pritchard.
We seem to struggle down there and beat them at home. Should be beating the bottom club but this will be quite physical so we need to be on it. Our clever players should prevail and three points would be very nice. No more injuries please.
