I have read the odd rubbish comment about yesterday but I must be living in a parallel universe, I enjoyed it. Now lets not mix up yesterday with the season, its easy to say 13th place, we are going backwards, O'Neill has a worse record than Bruce but lets look at yesterday, a good day. Did we expect to win? be honest, did we, I read a lot about thrashing during the week. What was that, United could have scored a shed load, point is they didn't. We were always the supporting act and I found the drama and relaxed atmosphere great. I sit next to sunderpitt and we, I thought, had a good day, sunder along with all the east stand don't rate Elmo, well neither do I TBH but I like to shout for him, it starts debate. Well yesterday he came on and be buggered, he did OK. I found the day fantastic, a day to enjoy and relax, a day to say our farewells to a few and to put to bed our topsy turvy season. Will we bring in the players to give us a great season, being Sunderland, who knows. Will we have a cracking season and finish top 8, would like to think so but again, who knows. All is in place with owner and manager but after years of following Sunderland the only way to carry on and keep any sanity is to hope this year will be the year. Bottom line is.. we finished 13th 3 more wins and we would have finished 8th. So, a full window and pre season, 6 months of looking at the squad and the backing of Short and the fans, can MON bring in the players and change the squad to find those extra 3 wins. Look at the points lost because chances were made but not taken because we do not have a striker and I would say that by keeping the same team, and he wont, but just adding 1 striker who can take chances and we would have had those extra 3 wins. Now we all expect more changes than that so we have every reason to be confident, but we are Sunderland. Surely its now time to put the Bruce stories to bed, forget the bad bits, enjoy the good bits, enjoy the break and top up those glasses to half full mode. Well done Newcastle, well done City you had a good season, but that's behind us now, we move on to 2012-2013 and that all important fixture list.
Well done Syd, says about all weve gone through in one post, our need for a decent striker is paramount, I feel like you had we had someone like SKP then we would have nailed 7th no problem, our defence is decent, very few pastings and lots of losses by the odd goal which could have been different had we had a goal scorer, so onwards and upwards and hope MoN delivers what we all crave, whoever that may be.
There was a dozen or so Man Uunited fans (I discovered that they hate been called Man U) in the Railway Club in the town after the game, and we had some great banter with them...Top drawer lads and lasses they were..
Season over and TBH a bit of a roller coaster was it not. SB had to go and MoN got us away from relegation albeit with a poor finish to the season as not having a striker caught up with us. I thought when Sess and McClean were on the wings and Campbell was up front we had a better balance and that this may be a pointer for the future. I am all for giving Campbell the benefit of the doubt but atm he lacks a calmness when in the box to allow himself a half a second to compose himself, his volley in the first half yesterday and his shank at Fulham last week being the evidence. Also when the opposite is needed i.e. just put his foot through the ball he tries for another touch, these two attributes are musts for strikers and I am afraid Fraizer may be lacking them. I expect we have seen the last of 'Nico' thank God and as Syd mentions Elmo can bugger off as well he is not up to scratch, a couple of good tackles against Nani does not mean he makes the grade. MoN gets 8.5 out of ten for me, it is not 10, cos' we needed striker reinforcements in Jan and he did not go for it. He can get the 1.5 back if he brings in a couple of really good hitmen in the summer as he will then have been vindicated then in his earlier decision to wait. I also have no problem with counter attacking football especially against the big boys, I thought we give Manure a run for their money yesterday and Mig showed what a good keeper he is as well. De Gea did not have that much to do!
