Match Day Thread Sheffield United v Sunderland AFC – Wednesday 17th August 2022 - KO 20:00

Exactly as I saw it, I was proud of our team tonight, the previous draw felt like a defeat, this defeat fells like a win, and Alex Neil has his mojo back. OaU

 

It really doesn’t mind. I’m gutted we’ve lost. We played well but it’s a results business, definitely doesn’t feel like a win…

 

Superb support tonight.

 

No shame in that tonight.


We need experienced players in before the window shuts or we will struggle. The squads doing ok so far, but like tonight, with a few first teamers out and a few backups, we are very thin on the ground.


We started todays gane with 2 defensive players, which looking at overall result etc was not too bad. It's not going to last all season.

 

1-0 down at HT with 11 men on the pitch and there's no way we are losing that game.

 

Shame about the result but liked Dan Neils aggression and getting stuck in tonight and thought Matete looked like the player I often imagine he is which is great. Hope we don't loan him out. Frustrating result but excellent performance tonight. Loving seeing us competing well in this league and we'll win some more games soon for sure

 

Agreed. I do think it’s an “instinct “ thing. Easy sat here saying “no way I grab him” but, until you’re in that situation, you just don’t know. Any of us may have stuck an arm across. Just one of those things. He knew as soon as it happened.

 

Better players know how to get around that instinct so don't get sent off. They don't take the risk in trying to control that ball. If they make an error they'll foul but not make it so obvious the referee doesn't have to make a difficult decision. If they can't do that they'll let the man run and get back to help the keeper.

What we'd do is irrelevant tbh, Neil's actions were poor and probably cost us the game ...

... if that's his natural instinct we can't keep risking him otherwise we'll lose more games we could've won.

 

I just think the natural reaction is that. I’ve done it myself playing pub footy. Miscontrolled a ball and grabbed the striker running on to,it (or worse).

I have seen experienced players handle to stop goalbound efforts in instinct situations. I’ve also seen far better players than Neil do exactly what he did and get themselves red carded. It happens and I feel for the lad. It almost certainly cost us the game. And I’m absolutely certain that he knows that too. How he learns from it is the important thing

 

Apparently Goochy was given the "player of the match" award . . . . instead of "man of the match"
This might seem to be a trivial thing, but surely it could only be relevant if we ever have mixed sex football . . . . stupid bastards

 

Actually thought we played better with 10 men. We were poor in possession, so many misplaced passes and heavy touches. In the main we should be proud of the performance but it could have been a lot worse were it not for Patterson.

Hey ho, we live to fight another day.

 

Batth should have just cleared the ball instead of giving it to Neil with his back to play. I get it that this is the way we want to play but there are times to play and times to clear your lines

 

I disagree. The ball into him was perfectly fine. Was an easy touch, and clip it wide to right centre back. If the ball reciever can not do that then they get removed from the team.

I don't mean from one mistake but if it becomes common. It's twice now in 4 games.

 

The two issues in his game for me are him positionally drifting out of the game when we don’t have spells of possession and losing the ball cheaply. The latter is why he didn’t play much last year under Neil because we also conceded goals then cos of it. I’m sure they’re working on it but it can’t cost us points at this level.

 

Having had a sleep and stepped away from the message boards to think through last night's game I honestly believe there are far more positives than negatives from last night's game.

The sending off obviously changed the game and I'm not going to hammer Dan Neil for a poor touch and a natural reaction as the ball got away from him, personally I think Baath should have cleared up field and allowed us to reset rather than play back into the middle to a player facing his own goal.

The goals we conceded are frustrating but I believe as a team we.dont defend crosses and set pieces well, that's not just down to the goalkeeper. As I said last night there were individual errors for the first goal from at least 3 players and you cannot single out just one for the blame. It was poorly defended as a team and we got punished.

The biggest positive for me is the front two, they really do look like a threat and I'd happily see them starting every game, the trouble with that is it exposes us elsewhere and the formation doesn't quite work.

Special mention to Gooch not only for the goal but for again running himself into the ground and also to Clarke who is also working his nuts off in an unfamiliar position

 

That's why we are pub footballers, mate. He's a professional, he should be able to bring a ball under control or play the first team pass.

Anyway, woke up this morning still proud of them. Haway the lads.

 

We had much more of a presence with Matete on the pitch. I'm really looking forward to seeing him over the next few games. I have a feeling he'll be keeping Dan out of the side, tbh.

 

Genuinely bugs me how people dive on you when you point out that Dan Neil has done absolutely nothing whatsoever to live up to his “massive potential” since coming into the first team. Other than a decent cameo against Crewe when he came on and scored, I can’t remember a single stand out game in league one and his start to life in the championship has been piss poor.

 

More experienced players not necessarily better players.