http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20575823 It seems a little premature to be suggesting that Sunderland are in danger of being relegated considering only 14 games have been played. But that is exactly what the Mackem boss has declared. I personally don't think either of the North East clubs will be involved in the relegation dogfight come the end of the season... Anybody else surprised by this latest comment from O'Neill?
At the moment we are, by xmas we probably still will be, march/april is anyones guess but hopefully not.
The league is shaping up to be as tight as a gnats chuff this year. A month too early to mention the R word though.
I was thinking it's really no good thinking about the drop until the new year... QPR haven't really been saying they're relegation fodder and look where they are!.
"Until you get the requisite number of points I don't think that you can ever think anything else," said O'Neill. True!
If we don't get at least 6 points from Wigan, Fulham and QPR, then I'd say we might just well catch ourselves in a relegation scare with you, but I think we have the quality to haul ourselves out of it.
I have the feeling the board will back MON in January... you need a fresh injection of players by the looks of things. A couple of really good CB's for a start
pretty sure WHU said that when they went down (Lampard/J Cole/R Ferdinand etc etc), and you probably said it yourself when you were on the slippery slope a few years back. if there is no confidence in the side then anyone can go down remember its a team game not a one man game, so if the team are not gelling, then anything can happen to any team (well maybe not the top 6 but even those will go sooner or later, might be 200 years but they will go).
We will see, all I know is it's too early to be talking about relegation for us at least. I have full faith that we can get ourselves back on track. And I'm sorry ACS but there's a pretty big difference from M.Owen, Martins, Duff etc to what we have now. We had such overpriced garbage in our side. We have proper quality now. We're just low on confidence and have had key players in and out with injury. Maybe we wont finish in a position that we'd have liked, but I seriously doubt we'll get relegated. The next few weeks can decide a lot. If we can scrape a win tomorrow and go to Fulham with confidence and Hatem Ben Arfa back in the side then we can get back into the frame. Tomorrows result and the result at Fulham are very important because these two clubs are currently around us. The fact that a couple of results will take you significantly higher up the table should give us some belief. We should also take confidence from the fact that we've already gotten results from two of the other sides that hoped to be in the Europa spots this year - Spurs and Liverpool. Keep the faith.
You want my opinion on what I think is wrong with your team? Meh! You're going to get it anyway. You miss BARTON! Or a bartonesque type player who is going to have a go at his own players never mind the oppos. To be blunt you look soft underbellied and lacking heart. You have a single point on us and we have a game in hand and a better goal difference. You lose your next match and my Geordie mates are even more going to be questioning Partridges tactics.
Why is it always a comparison with you lot? I don't give a **** where you are in the table as long as it's not effecting us. It does not give me solace to see you doing **** when we are. As for our current position, we are low on confidence and we lack creativity, which is obviously because we are without Ben Arfa and Cabaye. Our best crosser and set piece deliverer, Ryan Taylor, was also injured early on in the season. We have to basically play 3 holding midfielders and an inexperienced winger. Plus we get injuries to our defence every couple of games. Injuries have been a big problem, and have effected our results and our confidence. On top of their Europe has been a burden recently, but that will be gone for a couple of months so we can focus on the league.
it is pretty ironic though, and no, i am not getting into a Bruce Vs MON debate. Bruce last season = 14 games 11 points won 2 drew 5 lost 7 MON = 14 games 13 points won 2 drew 7 lost 5 ppl wanted bruce out after the brighton game and thought we were certs to beat Swansea and Norwich, when we didnt all hell broke loose on here and that was after 4-5 games of the season, I still blame the early derby and defeat though that just put the pressure on 10 fold and he never recovered. But we were in relegation battle, then now we are not (or listening to some we are not). PS my ,,,,,,, key is ****ed, type fast and it doesnt work, i have to take a hammer to it, been going back all day fixing posts i have done, but cant be arsed now, grammar is fine, KB is ****ed.