Sunderland edged to a 1-0 victory over Liverpool at the Stadium of Light courtesy of Nicklas Bendtner's solitary goal - but Charlie Nicholas was critical of the playing surface on Wearside. With the Reds suffering in this fixture in the past - most famously via Darren Bent's 'beach ball' goal - Nicholas witnessed another lacklustre performance from Kenny Dalglish's side, who lost further ground in the race for Champions League football. Visiting goalkeeper Pepe Reina, who was the victim of the bizarre Bent goal, endured another luckless day - Bendtner netting after a Fraizer Campbell effort had struck him on the head having hit the post. Nicholas told Soccer Saturday: "It's another bad break for Pepe Reina. He must hate going to the Stadium of Light! "It was a dreadful first half. The pitch doesn't help - we'd seen Arsenal there in the cup and they complained about it. I was sitting looking at it and thinking: 'How have they let this pitch get into this state?' "I know Martin O'Neill will probably say they're better when they pass the ball and move it about, but the pitch ruined the first half. Nobody could get hold of the ball because it was bouncing up around their neck. It ended up as a physical battle." ........................................................................................ Same for both teams though.... Mind does need some work on it..
It's called home advantage & the sooner visitors get over themselves the better. Last time I checked both teams got to play on the same pitch We need to build a fortress at home & if a cut up pitch helps us then they can all sod off
Hasn't Martin O'Neill said already they're going to do major work on it in teh summer... and are even looking at 'mixing in' some artificial turf... not even sure how that works.
Wasn't there yesterday and not seen the game yet however, I was at the Arsenal cup game and the pitch was spot on. In fact we played Arsenal the week beforehand was it and there were no complaints then about the pitch but, they won then didn't they (not a pop at Arsenal by the way just an example).
Pitch is awful but we are not alone with the modern stadia problem of poor ventilation and poor playing surfaces. Also, if yet are going to let 40,000 music fans to trample all over it, protected or not every year, then this is what will happen. Both teams do have to play on it and to be fair, its not helping us either. Our call control was poor at times and we have ball playing midfielders and strikers who would benefit from a new surface. Mon has indeed already stated its a priority this summer. That said, the pitch wasn't the season we beat Liverpool or Arsenal. Being the better team on the day was.
Fergie was the master at altering their pitch to suit particular styles of play/opposition, etc. Leave the grass long, cut it short, water it, don't water it etc but as has been said, it doesn't really suit us at the minute so the sooner we get it srted the better.
The pitch isn't in the best of condition at the moment,but it's only highlighted as a terrible pitch when a "top" team get beat off us!
Same for both teams. Have to agree, something needs doing though. As even soft short passes were bobbling all over yesterday.
Clubs already stated a new pitch will be laid after the summer concerts. As Cest mentioned, the height of the North Stand can reduce sun to the pitch, but we used to get round this with big UV lamps, dunno if we are still using them? We're still getting stacks of points at home, so I like it!
