Yet again, the Lads put in a decent shift away from home but end up on the losing side. We restricted a good Spuds side to a few speculative efforts. Westwood had 2 very good saves but apart from those had very little to do between the sticks ........one class finish from Pav. No doubting that the Spuds were on top most of the game like and deserved the win. O'Shea has once again proved that he should NOT be in the side. Surely even Elmo crosses the ball BETTER than O'Shea ( and Larsson for that matter !!). Young McLean showed glimpses of how good he may become when he came on. Bendtner was poor when he came on, not good enough. Sess huffed and puffed as usual. Vaughan was our best player with Bardo steady as usual. QPR next and hopefully we can press on........... Haway the lads man.
what are you on about o shea wasnt even that bad i think people just have it in for him he had quite a few good crosses, linked up well, helped attack and defended well Mclean did nothing and bentner had no suprt but stayed in the middle and helped attack when we did get forwad our worst player was colback tbh he did nothing
thought Vaughan was class and bardo was average, against players with pace he gets shown up, was a good move to go with Richardson and McClean down the left, shame we never managed to get the equaliser
O'Shea defended well, passing out is poor though. Titus and Vaughn MOM for me, the rest a much of a muchness, not enough guile but on another day we could have came away with a point.....I think we will get something at QPR if we play with the same effort as today
we kept going right to the end, i was proud of the lads today. No disgrace losing to Spurs and it took a great goal to separate the sides, can't fault any of the players today, maybe Colback should have scored but couldn't get his balance(if only he could use his right foot). Overall it was a very encouraging afternoon against a team that'll finish in the top 4 imo, can't wait for Wednesday. H'way The Lads
Thats because O'Shea, has come from a highly successful Manoo era, and does not even look close to performing of a standard that would normally befit such a portfolio of honours. He defended OK ish at times but on the whole, his distribution was non existant with wayward passes and long balls to white shirts. Ekotto had half the football field at times to get crosses in (luckily poor one mind you !). Its only natural to pinpoint the weakest link in the team, and he gives away possession to cheaply , too often for my liking. Wes is not too far behind though !! O'Shea for the bench for me......... let him prove me wrong v QPR.......
And another thing whilst I'm ranting............. Time and time again, Westwood thumps the ball downfield ......... only for us to give possesion away quickly after....... with the very odd exception at the moment. How about we try playing the ball out from the back and through the midfield for a change ?? We have shown that we are capable of passing the ball about quite well when we get into the groove..........
Whipping boy? No. But i expect a ex-man u player of his experience not only to defend well (which he did) but also distribute the ball well (which he didnt). Wouldnt say he was garbage though, just not up to expectations. Maclean did ok when he came on. He was tracking back, getting forward and got a couple of very good balls into the box (shame there was no one to get on the end of them) - not bad vs a very good spurs team imo. Still has got learning to do, but he should do very well for us. Colback and Vaughan did well in the centre, breaking up play. I think we will see even more of them against weaker teams, especially colback. Overall a good game from the lads, against a Spurs team who could be fighting for at least 2nd spot this season. I feel confident for the QPR game (i just hope Wickham will be ok).
Brown seems to have escaped stick once again despite two of his f*** ups leading directly to spurs scoring. No pressure on him at all and he passes the ball straight to a spurs player which starts the attack. He then panics comes far to high and makes a weak attempt at winning the ball which is easily knocked past him straight to Pavluchenko. Unfortunately for Bramble (who was outstanding yesterday) he couldnt bail brown out on this occasion.
Sunderlands Fullbacks gave Ekkotto and Walker far too much space, O'Shea is being shown just how average he is without his Man United superstars supporting him and Bentdner was awful Mr Ego with little talent who rates himself as the best about Europe needs to go back to Arsenal and beg Wenger for some game time with RVP. Thought Sandro was MOM box to box tackling and breaking up play didnt give Sunderlands CM a chance throughout the 90 minutes. However i did expect Spurs to win this even without the wing kings in Lennon and Bale who probably would have changed the game as Sunderland look slow. Sunderland are starting to look quite solid defensively and difficult to beat, Bruce bought well but as we all know MON is getting the best out of his players and if he continues to do so cant see Sunderland go down with worse sides around them. Finding it hard to see where the goals are coming from but i can say with an open heart you cant have Bramble and Heskey in the same side both clumsy lumps at either end of the pitch
I thought Bramble was our best player yesterday. Motd2 were raving about colback and I thought he had a canny game. Just shows how people see things differently. On the Oshea issue, he was terrible again. I think i can count on my fingers the amount of times he has successfully passed to one of his team mates this year. He's had one decent game and that was at centre back.
Cattermole weak points are the same as O'shea's - they struggle to find the intelligent pass and seem to struggle to pass to anyone further than 5 metres away. Neither are bad players, but we can do better than them imo. If both Bramble and Turner fit, I would play them at CB, Brown as RB (like he did for Man U and England) and Bardsley as LB (with Ricco as cover for LB - like yesterday). O'shea on the bench.
