I'm in Australia, so this match was perfectly timed for me Without further ado: In case you were still on the fence on this one - our side from last season stinks. For the entire first half, my face permanently looked like someone had just dropped the mother of all farts next to me. Canadian ice hockey style commentary does not blend well with football (i.e. it stinks). Canadians are great at pronouncing words like 'Pantillimon' and 'Giaccherini'. O'Shea and Brown officially cannot defend or stay in front of a slab of concrete. Rodwell is still struggling. Please come back real Jack - PLEASE!!! Bridcutt really, really stinks. Query - if he gets a career ending injury, do we get insurance money? We cannot retain possession or make insightful passes to save our lives. For large chunks of the match, we were played off the park by an MLS's first AND SECOND sides. I didn't know AJ was on the park until about the 40th minute. It feels good to have a little asshole on our side for once. Bless you Jermaine! Fletcher and his hair hat must be sold as soon as possible. Watmore may never get a fair go - honestly: what's the point of giving Fletcher 85 minutes in a friendly at the expense of someone who actually may have a bright future with our club? Our current purchases, while ok, will not be enough to fix this bunch of delinquents. We need a real box to box CM to replace Seb in the first XI, a real striker to replace Fletcher (and I would add another CB because something still seems fishy with Kaboul). Seb's headlock incident is evidence that were were trying our hardest and failing miserably in the first half. I'm still not to worried - it was a friendly after all, we did still get the win (albeit against their second string side), we still have our 4 new signings to integrate and we will definitely be bringing in another 2 faces I reckon to add some need quality. But geez, could our squad from last season stink any worse?!!
I notice we still sit far to deep to compensate for the lack of pace with the back two. Set the tone and invites them on.
with only a few weeks before the start of the season, this is not great news....but hope springs eternal
Didnt see it but from the comprehensive comments seems we were pretty poor but won. U know wot they say if u keep winning when playing **** you are not a bad team. Chins up and ktf
If it wasn't for pantillamon and Toronto missing a sitter we would have lost 4-2. We are desperate for a creative midfielder, And a forward to play with Defoe. If we have to sell before we can buy that's not good. I can't see anyone wanting/paying for bridcutt, Buckley or fletcher
Pre season means nothing. We had a pretty decent pre-season under Di Canio and we all know how that turned out. That being said we where pretty dire and i only lasted about half an hour before i went to bed.
As an aside my brother , now in his 60's , who supported Sunderland as a lad but emigrated years ago winged a full corporate ticket for him and his mates to watch the his first match in 40 years and then got to meet the players and give out the man of the match award.Jammy beggar
There keeper did make a few saves but my opinion mate we were lucky Toronto were the better side on the night. I know the new lads have to come into the squad but we still need 2/3 more and i hope we can get them.
True mate they were the better team on the night, and yes on the signings hoping at least 2 quality new signings with pace.
How can we be lucky or unlucky in a match where the result means nothing? If we played well and lost Dick would give a ****. Guaranteed. We need to improve from the performance but Toronto are completely irrelevant in every way. It wasn't a competitive match. Far too much focus on the score line and opponents. I'd rather direct my attention on things like the lack of pace at the back leading us to sit deep forcing our entire midfield to try and play football out of their own half constantly which leads to isolated forward and loss of possession. Or Pants distribution which surrenders possession virtually every time, or the negative mind set of billy Jones who away bottles the forward pass to knock it back to O'Shea. Who gives a **** if Toronto looked better? we don't support Toronto, and those who don't follow MLS will probably never give them a second thought ever again. If we're going to sit and bitch can it not be a tactical and constructive assessment instead two dimension moaning about the opponents performances,chances and their standing in the football world, and how we should do better against them? How can we improve? Who needs to improve and how? Proper football chat.
Pants is the best goalkeeper since Turner, and looking forward to seeing Lens next week, and I am sure Dick will bring in a excellent midfielder/striker before the transfer deadline.
Don't give a crap about friendlies....it's all points in the Premier League...that's only what I care about...
Funky - if the focus was on the scoreline, then we'd all be celebrating this result. But we aren't as the product was pretty ordinary. Yes, it's only a friendly, but I was hoping for more than just rare flashes of solid team football. We really need to be working at close to 100% for our next friendly so that we can get stuck into the season proper.
"I'm still not to worried - it was a friendly after all, we did still get the win." I'd hate to see you if you were ...........
It's not your post i was questioning fella, Nothing against it, it was very constructive, and I added my concerns to it. It's the way the thread went astray in talk of Toronto chances, and how they could have won. It really puzzled me how anyone can think that should be in anyway the focus.
Fair enough Funky. Knowing what, if anything, to take out of these friendlies is difficult. Smug - don't worry mate, it usually takes me until March to get worried! Transfers aside, I have a much brighter outlook for the season ahead just based on the more sensible schedule we have. For the last 2 seasons, the first half of the season has been all the top teams at home and all the bottom teams away (making us bookies underdogs for pretty much every game).
Means very little. I watched man city getting butt ****ed of real madrid Mind they do need to improve or chelsea will walk it..
