To be fair, we played Plymouth off the park and I'm fairly sure we would have won regardless of the red card
Sunderland have been schizophrenic team all season,not helped by having to plug injury holes and having many Jekyll and Hyde players. The thing is that deep down I know amongst our squad Sunderland have a team that were capable of hammering anyone in L1. Unfortunately a key part of that team is now playing at centre back where, since Sanderson's injury, he has increasingly become a liability. Before he dislocated his shoulder 09 put in a couple of cracking games as a probing centre midfield. Upon his return he was forced to became an important stop-gap centre back. Yet key to 09s success at CB was Sanderson's defender's brain and pace to cover his errors. Bailey is a different animal, so is McLaughlin and I don't think either work well at centre back alongside of 09. If LJ wanted a back four I would play a back line of 09-McLauchlin-Wright-Hume And have Younger on the Bench as cover for the centre backs.
Form goes right out of the window now, it’s about which team out of the 4 can hold it together. Wycombe were in the worst form of every team last season and still won it
I wish Johnson had been brave enough to play Younger at Centre Half, The kid has looked impressive when he HAS played and it would have freed up O'Nien to give us more mobility in midfield. Mad to think that Younger is actually a month older than Sanderson, yet deemed not worth a place in the squad It's too late now of course and we have to go into the play offs with Wright and O'Nien as there is no way we can risk shoe-horning Flanagan back in without games under his belt I'm going into the Play-Offs with zero expectations and clinging on to the hope that KLD invests heavily in the summer and we build a squad capable of walking the division next year
Whilst I'm not knocking the idea of playing Younger,it's not mobility we lack in midfield,it's creativity,which I'm not sure Luke will give us.He's got loads of energy,but can he see the right pass and execute it well......because we don't currently have anyone in there who can,and that's what we need.We're far too ponderous, the tempo isn't quick enough often enough, we make the wrong decisions too often and even teams with less than competent defences are able to see us off. Also,while I'm on,our delivery from wide areas and corners is ****ing abysmal in the main. I'm not in any way confident of getting through against Lincoln,let alone the final and I'm resigned to another season in this awful division.
Aye, creativity is lacking in midfield, so LJ puts Leadbitter in there and we end up lacking creativity and mobility. I wish just once LJ would line us up to have a right go at the opposition. I like Leadbitter and earlier in the season he used to steady the players around him, but he has definitely slowed down over the season and that has become an issue which overshadows and negates his team steadying ability. We saw it with JO'S where at some point no amount of anticipation is enough to compensate for a total lack of pace.
They got to the playoffs on PPG but they still had to win that mini tournament to go up. The thing is, after the season being halted in March, there was no form going into the playoffs so it became even more of a lottery than usual.
Team selections have been consistently poor. LJ needed to sort it out weeks ago, but he seems to have lost his way and the team is following suit. Players have been inexplicably ignored while waiting for injured players to return this has been a failed policy. A couple of lucky wins could still cover over the cracks and turn the tide for now , lets hope so.
Perhaps it has something to do with this famous data driven approach? If so, it might work better when the whole squad have been recruited along those lines. Meanwhile I am all for analogue team selection - it is what I grew up with.
Think you find they were 4 teams playing in a for a place in the championship, I never mentioned anything about ppl because I was talking about the semis and final which the efl deemed the 4 teams should be playing for, Wycombe were in the worse form than the other 3 and won it, that was the point