Five things Martin OâNeill should have learnt about his new club Sunderland after watching defeat against Wolves Martin O'Neill starts his new job as Sunderland manager today. Luke Edwards assesses the key areas he will look to address after watching his new team beaten 2-1 by Wolves from the stands. STEPHANE SESSEGNON IS KEY The Frenchman has the skill to trouble defenders on either the left flank or behind a main striker, and he is the only Sunderland player capable of beating his man with the ball at his feet. Needs to receive it further up the pitch and given the confidence to try the unexpected. Is a potential match winner. CENTRAL MIDFIELD NEEDS SORTING Lee Cattermole and Jack Colback are too similar to play together. Both are tidy and efficient in the middle but prefer to give the ball to others to create. Too often the ball goes sideways. Sunderland deliver a lot of crosses into the area yet neither of their central midfielders ever looks like converting one. GOALS ARE A PROBLEM Martin O'Neill might want to help Sunderland by giving Nicklas Bendtner a ticket to ride out of Wearside Sunderland are worryingly blunt in attack. Their options will be limited and the asking prices high, but to choose to see out the rest of the season without a striker is not a risk worth taking given how badly the team have performed since Darren Bentâs departure at the start of the year. DONG-WON IS NOT READY South Korea international is trying to learn a new language as well as adapt to English football. Started for the first time in the league against Wolves and looked out of sorts. HE NEEDS A BREAK What can go wrong does go wrong at the moment for Sunderland. Confidence is drained and bad decisions made because of it. They should have beaten Wolves, but look nervous when defending a lead. The new manager needs to get rid of the fear.
Martin O'Neill might want to help Sunderland by giving Nicklas Bendtner a ticket to ride out of Wearside There will be Martin O’Neill pep talks you would pay to be at. The morose will be told they are better than they imagine and the cocky will be instructed to look a bit more honestly in the mirror. Look at me: Martin O'Neill will want Nicklas Bendtner (above) to justify his seemingly high opinion of himself Photo: AP By Paul Hayward, Chief Sports Writer 7:30AM GMT 05 Dec 2011 18 Comments Sunderland's players will feel a blast of energy when O’Neill gets down to work with the side beaten 2-1 here at Molineux. The simplest of his managerial talents is to encourage and enthuse. By degrees, though, the mess in this squad will be hacked and cleared away in favour of a more coherent vision for a side now showing relegation form. After his long break from front-line stress O’Neill assumed the favoured position of all recently installed saviours, in shirt and tie, in the directors’ box, from where he could cast an omnipotent eye on the hyperactivity of Lee Cattermole, the self-absorption of Nicklas Bendtner and a back four of Manchester United discards who were twice breached by Steven Fletcher after Kieran Richardson had put Sunderland in front with a rocket of a finish. O’Neill’s best players are Sebastian Larsson and Stephane Sessegnon, but otherwise problems abound. Bendtner is one. Big Nic’s self-image works in inverse proportion to his actual contribution and O’Neill is unlikely to look to him for redemption. This is the ticket you would buy: O’Neill and Bendtner in the psychology room. The player is biding his time until Barcelona or Real Madrid dial his number. Some kind of Danish-Swedish frostiness? No, in just about every respect Bendtner is playing for himself and O’Neill will not tolerate such vanity. The new manager’s problem is that Sunderland’s front-line is a non-event. Connor Wickham has made little impact since his £8 million move from Ipswich Town and playing Sessegnon wide left reduces his influence through the middle. Ji Dong-Won offers a modest talent for the unexpected but rarely looks capable of really hurting teams in this league. Larsson, a right winger, is the side’s top scorer with four. In central midfield Cattermole and young Jack Colback are duplicates, hustling and scuffling in front of the two ex-United centre-backs, John O’Shea and Wes Brown. Cattermole’s value would be increased by fewer stupid tackles and a slowing of his brain to defuse the suspicion that he is permanently overexcited. The bench offers two points of light (neither of them is Titus Bramble). Craig Gardner and David Vaughan are two capable midfielders who passed into shadow under Steve Bruce but O’Neill should be able to drag them back into the light. Bruce’s successor is sensitive to any suggestion of political interference from boardroom level and is not inclined to hand out starting jerseys to teenagers unless he is sure they can win him games. In the first respect there is a clear chain of command from the manager’s office to Niall Quinn and then to Ellis Short, the club’s owner, who can expect a reduction of relegation anxiety but will need to spend big again once O’Neill has stabilised the first XI. Wolves’ victory confirmed emphatically that Bruce’s extensive shopping in the transfer market has not produced the right goods. So all O’Neill can do now is wring the best from these players and recruit at least one striker in January before starting again almost from zero in the summer. If he can get Gardner and Vaughan moving again and make the best use of Sessegnon, his best improviser, he will just be left to sort out his defence, in which Brown is experienced but vulnerable and O’Shea needs to assert himself as a leader and concentrate fully. That should keep O’Neill occupied for the first week, anyway. Many of us always felt he was moving inexorably towards a top-four job (Liverpool always seemed an ideal destination) yet this one plants him back in rescue mission mode, this season, at least. Beyond immediate reordering, the hope is that Sunderland will offer a stable home for him to impose his ideas on a team and become synonymous with a single club crest. Many of the posts he rejected – West Ham was one – were emergency call-outs with fewer prospects of long-term growth. This one offers a chance to build a team in his own infectiously passionate image. Three consecutive sixth-place finishes with Aston Villa are the high watermark of a manager who has always seemed capable of great deeds in the game. He still has time to fulfil that destiny. Sunderland’s good luck is to have coaxed back to action an accomplished motivator who is guaranteed to maximise the potential of the players they already have while surely lobbying Short for better ones. Bendtner should study his new boss’s CV and recognise the chance he now has to come down from his high wire of self-regard and be part of something more collegiate. Most neutrals will care less about that than O’Neill’s opportunity to show just how good he is, in a harmonious environment, if such a thing exists in modern football.
dong wong is not ready, wickham and campbell injured and Bendtner chassed back to Demark by a pitchfork wielding mob. 4-6-0 i think is the preferred formation then.
I pretty much agree with all of that. Colback to play with Vaughan or Gardner for me. Meyler to replace Colback long term if he gets fit again. Be interesting to see O'Neill's take on things. I could be wrong but I don't know if he has ever really had a Sessegnon type player in his teams. At Leicester, Celtic and Villa he likes the traditional wide men who really stretch the game. As you suggest he may have to incorporate him somehow into a more central/free role if he want to include him. I know the league table looks bad at the minute but I am fully confident that O'Neill will pull it round. He wouldn't have been my choice but if nothing else the fans seem galvanised and are more likely to stick with the team a bit longer during the games!! Sunday will be a big crowd and we all must pull together no matter what happens
Syd a very good analysis, what I would add or amend is that Sess cannot do it alone, if we play (as you say) Catts and Colback together it needs more creativity and a goal threat from CM, I presume that is why Vaughan and Gardner were bought and they like Bendtner to need step up or ship out. You also pinpoint what everyone else has spotted, since we no longer have Bent/Gyan/Welbeck we have no goalscorers, Ji needs time, Wickham likewise (cos' of injury and youth). It was this problem above all that did for SB, especially if you recall taking Connor/Ji and Gardner, Brown and O'Shea (i.e. Anton could have stayed) he spent a lot of cash in excess of £20million. We seem very unlucky with injuries and ref decisions, I know Larsson Dived but there 2nd goal was a handball. I hope MoNs luck is better. So yes Syd I agree with you we have you, MoNs first job is to hang on until Jan and then bring a couple of strikers in.
My stab at his first team selection on Sunday (not necessarily my choice but how I think he will go) Westwood O'Shea Bramble/Turner Brown Bardsley Larsson Colback Gardner Richardson Sessegnon Bendtner I reckon he will tell Larsson and Kieran just to hug the touchline and fire balls into that box. Bendtner told to get on the end of what he can with Gardner and Sess bombing on behind him. My team personally however would be Westwood Bardsley O'Shea Brown Richardson Larsson Colback Vaughan Sessegnon Bendtner Ji I know Ji struggled but we aint got much else!! Noble looks good so I would look to give him half an hour in the 2nd half rather than the last 5 mins!
some truths hidden within the crap in that article. not many though. My guesses: Cattermole to lose the captain armband and possibly his place in the team Ricco to keep the LB position Oshea to be dropped to the bench, Bramble/Turner to be ahead of him and Bardo at RB Noble and Tounkara to be given a chance - at least up until the transfer window
Lesson number 1... Realise Elmo..Moicannitcrosshdy is ****e....and dump him.. Lesson 2.. Apart from Man City... we are the only team to not lose by more than one goal this season, so we're not a long way of being decent...sort out the forwards and we're laughing.
I thought Ji got better in the second half. He might be o.k. with a few more games. A permanent solution? - I hope he puts in a bid for Bent and brings Gyan back next summer. We've only been paid about £5 or £6 million for Bent yet. Give it back. Gyan is still our player and will cost nothing. So for about £5 million, we might have the pair of them back. Bruce has gone. He's history. Let's start afresh and give everybody a clean sheet.
i don't think i have lost all hope with elmo yet if someone tells him to stop crossing 20-30 yards away from the bar line he may be ok, think a player like him needs set insructions.
I would rather rip out my own eyeballs than have Darren Bent back, and Gyan has a lot of making up to do before I would welcome him back too. I would like to see us move on. Get what we can for Gyan to make up most of what we shelled out on him. I really think he will go for the old fashioned target man approach. I reckon Wickham being strong and powerful will be right up his street but feel he will go for a bit of experience in January so he knows exactly what he is getting. Am certain he will want another left sided player too.
re: central midfield needs sorting. i noticed quite a few times the ball breaking into space on the edge of the area on sunday, yet neither cattermole nor colback were anywhere to be seen. Instead they would be 40 yards back sitting in front of the defence. Isn't this the reason we bought Craig Gardener? He was bhams top scorer last season mainly down to him being in a position to make these sorts of chances for himself. I think MON was a big fan of his. So I'd like to see him given a chance.
I don't think you're alone it that Tractor. But, to be honest, if it comes to watching SAFC winning 3-0 or visiting you in the eye infirmary, I know where I'd rather be. I repeat : "Bruce has gone. He's history. Let's have a clean sheet for everyone". If Bent wants to bang a couple in and kiss our badge, believe me, I'll live with the 'pain'. Not half.
