Match Day Thread Sunderland AFC v Saudi State FC - FA Cup 3rd Round – Saturday 6th January 2024 - KO 12:45

Great to meet up with these old timers today.

Me (Bart), GordonArmstrong, Smug & GilTAzell.

Shame about the footie.

Ba was my MOTM, did more in his cameo than anyone else managed the whole game.

Poor Trai had a shocker, as did Jobe & Clarke.

But that’s what you can expect coming up against £500m in players.

At least we’ll all get a wash tonight, unlike them dorty mags.

Let’s get a positive result against Ipswich and see where we are.

Bart

 

Probably loads of plastic Skyboy 92ers down there as well tbf

 

Great photo lads, looks like yous enjoyed the day regardless

 

Thought Ballard was really good today. Pritchard unlucky not to score.
Clarke got nothing from trippier - Beale maybe could have switched him to the right or actually played with a right winger so they didn't know that was our only real avenue of attack but that simple adjustment seemed beyond his tactical imagination.

Clearly it was a corrupt £450m team v a honest hard working £15m team.
Patterson had less to do than dubravka ironically although I blame him as much as ekwah for the 2nd goal - he said nothing to ekwah as everyone else pushed up and gave him an awful ball which he lost and gifted the game to the skunks.

 

We did, LBW . . . . before the match started

 

Everything I've read about his time up there doesn't sound good but hopefully he has learnt from it.

 

Cracking interview from our manager.
I remember we had similar from our 4-0 thrashing off Chelsea.

 

I may sound, defeatist, or be accused of accepting mediocrity when I say this, but I’d rather we spend the next 2 to 3 years developing the squad (whilst we might lose some of the big names) to point, we were able to go to the Premier League and compete. I am in no hurry to get back to the Premier League, not if we’re going to be scraping around for fourth bottom every season. There is no fun in that

 

Aye I couldn’t take a season like Sheff United are having.

 

Or Burnley. They were Head And shoulders above everyone else in the league last year and now look at them!

 

Men against boys today, no complaints. 2 poor goals and a penalty is all they had, but I think we could have given more intent. Main observation from me: if pritch is an example of experience, then we need more of it. Despite my intoxicated rant the other day, I agree with the model. However, only pritch and Dan Neil on the pitch today were up for that to the extent required. Need more experience.

 

hurts but newcastle are just a different level and it showed all the way through, kieran trippear had clarke in his back pocket and gordon had humes life all game, even though ballard had hand in two goals i thought him and onien handled isak alright

one thing it did show is i dont think many of are players are ready for the step up,

 

They just didn't let us play. There is no margin for error against (gritted teeth) a good PL side. Every misplaced pass was punched upon, they have us no time or space. It felt like they had 2 extra players at times.

 

Unfortunately game played out as i thought,physically,nouse,experience,speed etc we simply couldn’t match.
The most frustrating thing was gifting them 2 goals
Pure and simple we can’t match a club on the pitch backed by the murderous Saudi state

 

Exactly mate, no margin for error - and it shows that our lads have a long way to go until they reach that level. Only gripe I had today was that we didn’t change the gameplan. Against Leeds, we recognised the threat and set up adequately to beat them. We showed them respect. Today the message seemed to be “play our game” without any acknowledgment that they are better than we are. Baffled me.

 

aye and the fans who are saying it's embarrassing need to take the hatred Nufc glass off and just realise the better team won, the was nothing embarrassing about it they are just a different level

 

Exactly marra the best way i could describe today was it was like having two different age groups playing against each other,we just found it very hard to compete

 

I think a number of our lads are better than what they showed today

 

I wouldn't disagree, but I just think the Saudis stopped us playing. They shut Clarke down completely and have us no time or space to play in. No shame in that.