Steven Fletcher admits he needs to be scoring more goals for Sunderland, but a bit of support will make the job easier. Too often during his Wearside career the Scotland striker has cut a lonely figure up front, but at Villa Park on Saturday Gustavo Poyet encouraged wide players Emanuele Giaccherini and Fabio Borini to play high up the pitch. Poyet has spoken recently about how he would âloveâ to play Jozy Altidore alongside Fletcher given enough time to work on a partnership on the training field. It may not happen at home to Chelsea in the Premier League tomorrow, but Fletcher welcomes the idea. He said: âIt makes it easier when you have someone next to you close by when you take the ball and you have a simple pass rather than a 20-yard pass. âI think against Hull I only had a 40-yard pass on, but it is easier when I have someone up top with me. Especially someone like Jozy, who is strong and powerful and can take all the knocks while I stay away from them and try to get in positions to score.â Counting against Altidore is that his only Premier League goal came in a season-long loan with Hull City. Sunderland are heavily reliant for Fletcher for goals but he has struggled this season too, only finding the net twice in a campaign disrupted by ankle and shoulder problems. The Scot admnitted: âI think we both need to be scoring more. âJozy scores countless times in training everyday so I donât think itâs bothering him at all, but I think heâs not had many chances to be honest. Itâs not as if heâs missing chance after chance, heâs not getting many. âWhen he does I think if he does he will put one away soon and Iâm the same. I just want to put as many away as I can.â With three wins and a draw in their last six games, Sunderlandâs confidence is higher than their league position might suggest. Although they ought to have beaten Villa at the weekend, a first clean sheet and point away from home under Poyet meant the positives outweighed the negatives. Home games against Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur this week will test morale but ,after a 1-0 win over Manchester City in their last Stadium of Light outing, Fletcher is excited rather than intimidated. He said: âI think we look forward to those games. âIf you donât want to play against Chelsea and Tottenham then you shouldnât be here. âWeâre raring to go against them. We seem to be all right when we play the top four.â For his part, Borini was impressed with the way his partnership with Giaccherini worked at the weekend. âWe changed positions a lot during the game to make it harder for defenders to mark us,â said the on-loan striker, who hit the crossbar with a header. âI moved out to the right and Giaccherini was on the left and we both created chances. âWe did well to create the chances but we need to be a lot more clinical in games and take those chances and finish them off. âI think if we had done that against Aston Villa we could have been 3-0 up after the first half. âAt the break the coach told us to keep going and doing what we were doing. âAt that point we had only done half of the job and our objective was to give a solid performance for 90 minutes â and I think, for the first time we did that.â Valentin Roberge will be standing by in case John OâShea is unable to recover from a groin strain in time to play tomorrow. OâShea suffered the problem late in Saturdayâs 0-0 draw at Aston Villa.
Good to hear, we have a lot of games coming up and I've no doubt that the whole squad will be used over this time period. Ha'way the lads!
Yes we need goals and yes Jozy does not look like scoring them, against the 'better' teams it would be foolish to play two up front. Against Vile we could have won if Giac had put the ball in the net from his sitter and if Borini's header had gone in.
I disagree. If Fletcher is left isolated then when balls are played up to him we will simply keep giving possession back to Chelsea, and they have enough quality to punish us. We need to go with 2 up front.
I think we need to do exactly what we did against Man City against Chelsea and that means one up top. We can't go with 4 midfielders against a much better 5 man midfield which is what Chelsea essentially play. Theyd stroll through us. Id actually play Altidore in place of Fletcher. I love Fletcher but for me he's looked a bit disinterested since the derby. Am I the only one who thinks this?
Its a delicate balance between attacking and defending. Get it wrong and the quality in that Chelsea team could run riot and destroy us. We cannot go gung-ho and we dare not defend too deep. I think Gus will adopt a similar style to an away game as on Saturday at Villa, with Borini and Giacherinni supporting Fletcher in attack but having the safety of Larsson, Ki and Colback behind them. I think we need Jack back tomorrow to offer more control and tackling in the middle. He will have to face a formidable set of top quality midfield players but for me, Colback is the find of the season so far and well up to the job. I also expect to see us play a higher line against them, as Chelsea are the most caught offside team in the EPL this season and obviously like to push. I do hope JOS and Brown stick together as they marshall the defence superbly together but if JOS is out, its an opportunity to let Roberge make his mark. He is a comfortable footballer and will have Brown alongside him to help out. Bring it on. Cant wait and I'm in the Black Cats Bar Seats tomorrow to celebrate my birthday.
Chelsea are a completely different test to City. For the first 45 mins when City didn't have Navas on they didn't look like scoring, but when he came on he gave us loads of problems. Chelsea have an abundance of pace in their team. Playing like we did against Man City against Chelsea won't finish well imo. We should play 2 up top when attacking, but then one of strikers needs to drop back into midfield when defending
Fletcher is better than Altiadore, but I would only have one on at at time to really run the Chavski CBs this would be the plan from the start so that who is ever is on first can run himself into the ground knowing he is going to be replaced. Personally imho Chavski have a better midfield than most national sides, we have to pack midfield to try and contain them. If Mata cannot get a start for the special one how about a cheeky loan bid. Mata will want to play regularly for the world cup. On another forum I think I saw that 10years ago on the 4th December we beat Chavski 4-1....
I said before the Newcastle game Fletcher is looking **** & hopefully Gus will drop him tomorr. give Altidore a chance for **** sake.
I think he needs to be patient and stop moaning. He's got his starting place. More than what Jozy has and you don't hear him moaning. We are in the early stages of implementing a new philosophy, it's going to take time to give him consistent support. Or shall we just scrap all that to go more direct, pumping it up to two strikers and hope defenders make a mistake defending easy balls?
Flo scored in their 4-0 earlier in that season. Poyet scored two. Could that be why you're think Flo?
