Sunderland travel to Birmingham in the Championship. Last time out Sunderland lost to Cardiff and Birmingham drew with Swansea The Black Cats suffered a 1-0 home defeat to Cardiff with a lack-lustre team performance. Anthony Patterson saved a first half penalty but conceded early in the second half. Tony Mowbray will be without Luke O’Nien as he picked up a 5th yellow card of the season. The Blues drew 2-2 with Swansea in mid-week and currently sit in 10th position on 28 points. Birmingham have four wins, four draws and two losses from their last 10 games and have one of the best defensive records in the league. Former Black Cat loanee, Dion Sanderson is expected to start in the centre of defence. Krystian Bielik missed Tuesday night’s clash against Swansea City due to suspension but will be available for this game and is expected to start. Tony Mowbray: "We've sat here a lot and talked about either playing really well in the first half, or being much better in the second to get a result. There's an issue with our level of consistency within games. We have to keep working to find the answers to that. "Sometimes you have to just win your duels, your tackles and your headers, and I think that our fans enjoy that every bit as much as a great goal or a great passing move. We have to remember to bring both of those to every game. "It is tough to win back-to-back games at this level and I do think that we have a team that is still coming together. It was playing in a different league last year. We are going to do it this season, I'm sure that we are, and we are striving. "There's two teams out there as well, and you can't swamp every team because they are allowed to play well as well sometimes. I have to get the balance between giving the lads a knock sometimes when it's not good enough, and keeping the belief, that the good things that they are doing will see us fine if they keep doing that. John Eustace: “Obviously we’re disappointed to concede the goals that we did, for all their individual quality the most disappointing thing is that we conceded from two corners. It is pleasing that we created the chances that we did and put them under pressure. "The schedule of the league is really tough, It's not right - we play too many games in a short period of time. To go again on Friday now, with Sunderland not playing this week, it's poor. "There are going to be some tired bodies, for sure, but they will be ready and we want to put on another fighting performance. Win, lose, or draw, everyone can see that we're committed and that we go to the end and that's what I expect again on Friday." Form: Match Appointments: Referee: ANDREW MADLEY Assistant Referees: Natalie Aspinall & Daniel Leach Fourth Official: Sunny Gill Team Lineups: Sunderland AFC: (4-3-3) Patterson, Cirkin, Batth, Wright, Hume, Neil, Evans, Pritchard, Clarke, Roberts, Simms Subs: Bass, Huggins, Matete, Embleton, Bennette, Amad, Dajaku Injured: Ballard, Stewart, Alese, Gooch, Michut Suspended: O’Nien Birmingham City: (3-5-2) Ruddy, Colin, Sanderson. Trusty; Graham, Mejbri, Bacuna, Bielik, Longelo; Hogan, Deeney Subs: Etheridge, Chong, James, Bellingham, Hall, Friend, Jutkiewicz Injured: Placheta Betting Odds: Sunderland 11/5 Birmingham 5/4 Draw 23/10 Prutton Predicts: meh My two pence: Again we failed to follow up on a good result in mid-week, but Cardiff deserved their win and out fought us. Most of the mid-week results went against us, so it would be great to get any kind of result at Birmingham. Birmingham are very strong in defence, they like to attack down the left and they tend to score from set pieces. They also have a Ruddy good keeper. I’m going for a 2-2 draw Live Stream: The game is Live on SkySports Football Ha’way the Lads
To have any chance of winning this game, we will need 2 strong halves of football. Do I think this will happen, probably not despite having more prep time than Brum. 2-1 to Birmingham and a further drop towards the bottom 3 for us. Tho nobody will be happier than me for TM if he manages to get us a performance and a positive result. Bart
RTB Can't really argue with your team RTB I just hope for a performance and a win... Last Saturday was unacceptable, in so many ways.
Thanks RTB, great thread as always. Can’t see how we get a result in this one, but praying we pull something out the bag. We are desperate for three points, there’s no point in dressing it up.
Don't know how to call this, for the first time this season I can't see us getting a positive result but hope I'm wrong. Think the lads just need a break, which would have been nicer a week early so I blame FIFA Hope I'm totally wrong and the lads do us proud, we'll soon see. HTL. Great effort again RTB, top lad.
If we play with what looked like the negative tactics of our last game I am very worried but if we can somehow tap into that energetic fast and quick moving team from the start of the season I would be more hopeful, not sure why we have lost that energy it could be injuries it could be tactics it could be the change of manager really can't quite put my finger on it but if we can find that spark again then who knows
HA'WAY THE LADS MACKEMS ATTACKEM Its a tight league, I noticed bottom Huddersfield beat 6th place QPR last time out. In fact QPR were possibly 4th going into that game but have had a poor run of form their last 4 games. So anything is possible. I'd probably take a draw going into the break and hope we get more wins when Stewart, O'nien etc are back. That said a win will be fantastic and of course is possible, I'll be watching from afar in the pub. Coooooomon.
Great thread @RTB I think we can get something from this...even if we dont I would just like to see a fighting, passionate performance Hawaaaaaaaay
DEENEY PRE SAFC Birmingham captain Troy Deeney has spoken about the Blues' season so far, what they can do better and insists that despite being in 10th place, the team is still a 'work in progress'... LEVEL HEADED “It’s not time to get excited, not at all. I am sure if we lose on Friday we will be four points off the bottom three, it’s just the nature of the Championship." WORK IN PROGRESS “I feel like we are a work in progress, like we are getting people believing back in the team and the squad. We had 19,000 last Friday, we are getting people buying into it which is great but still loads of work to do to progress us to being a genuine top ten team." ROOM TO IMPROVE “We have got to keep our feet on the ground, we are 20 games in, people were saying we are relegation favourites and we bottom of every one of these so-called expert’s lists so we just have to keep working, keep believing and doing what we do. But we can get better, there is room to improve, so we have to improve. Remember the experts said we are bottom, so we are going to have to listen to the experts – we don’t get carried away. You know what I’m like, we demand more." MORE TO DO “So when we draw I don’t sit there and go ‘Well done’ because I scored, I say 'We need to do more.' When we win I say 'We need to do more' and when we lose I say 'We definitely need to do more'. As long as there’s more to be done we will always do it. There’s work to be done, our crossing from corners was really poor against Swansea, our set pieces are really strong as proved on Saturday. So we need to get consistent. Until we get that and there’s nothing I can complain about then we will keep carrying on.”
Thanks again RTB great thread, watched Birmingham a few times lately, and they are competitive, but beatable imo., gone for a win as we need one to keep in the comfort zone, but would settle for a draw. I like your team, lets hope they turn up and perform, they owe it to themselves as well as the club after the last game, which simply wasn't good enough. OaU
Tough game but looking forward to the last game before the break. One last big effort lads. 1-2 to us.
