I don't blame the stay-away fans, but we will bounce back, vows Black Cats boss O'Neill Sunderland manager Martin O'Neill admits he will understand if club supporters turn their back on his team this weekend. O'Neill faces former side Aston Villa at the Stadium of Light on the back of Sunderland's disastrous Capital One Cup exit at the hands of Championship high-flyers Middlesbrough on Tuesday night. The shot-shy Mackems are struggling to create and score goals and Newcastle striker Demba Ba is their second top scorer behind Steven Fletcher, who has bagged five goals. Crashing out: Sunderland striker Steven Fletcher looks dejected as Middlesbrough celebrate their winner Although they have only lost one league game this season, to champions Manchester City, fans started to turn against O'Neill and his players on Tuesday. More than 32,000 turned up for the Wear-Tees derby but that was with tickets at a £15 for adults and half that price for kids. Even with another ticket incentive this weekend, O'Neill has acknowledged unhappy supporters may not turn up in their droves on Saturday. Looking for a reaction: Martin O'Neill says Sunderland will bounce back He said: 'If a supporter chooses not to come on Saturday because he has been disappointed, I cannot tell him otherwise. 'The way I will change his mind about not coming here, if that is the case, is to first of all respond to the cup defeat and secondly to try and engineer some moves from which we can score a goal from and try, because of that, to take away the frustration. That's all but eventually someone deciding to come or not to come, that will be up to him or her. 'We know we have to do more to score goals. We have to look dangerous and when we get the ball in and around the penalty area, we can't either pass the buck or lose it in really good positions. We have got to do better.' O'Neill hopes to have Seb Larsson, Craig Gardner and Danny Rose back at the weekend but defender Wes Brown looks certain to be out for the year after suffering a setback on his road to recover in training.
you have to admire his honesty, as you have to recognise a problem if you're gonna fix it. let's just hope he AND the players can fix it. it ain't all down to him.
As i've said before, i'm looking for a massive reaction agains Villa, we have to pick ourselves up and get at them, create and take the chances and then move on from that. It's a must produce, must win game for me, bollocks to all these negative tactics, get them and score a few goals.
All I know is that right now unless they start picking up I have better things to spend £40.00 a fortnight on
Thing is a lot could see the problems starting to build a month ago, as said lets hope he can sort the lads out if we lose this one then there will be the inevitable calls for his head or aspersions on his geordie relatives who happen to be slightly overweight.
If we lose today mate i certainly won't be logging on here for a while, i just couldn't take the negativity no matter how much it might be deserved.
