https://www.safc.com/news/2024/july/30/romaine-mundle-reflects-on-pre-season/ Romaine Mundle gave his thoughts following Sunderland’s narrow 2-1 defeat to Bradford City on Tuesday evening…. “It was a good test for myself and the whole team,” he said. “I thought we approached the game well, but let ourselves down in a couple of areas. “I was pleased to get on the scoresheet – I feel like I’m building as a player and hopefully I can take that into more games. After arriving in January from Belgian side Standard Liege, the winger is raring to go after getting his first full pre-season under his belt on Wearside. “Pre-season has been good – I didn’t know what to expect with it being my first at the Club, but I think I’ve adapted well. “The Head Coach has a way of playing and different ideas – he likes to play attacking football which suits me. “We’re all looking forward to the season now, and hopefully it will be a positive one.”
Went to bed after the first half, I thought they were quite lucky and we were quite arrogant thinking we just had to turn up.
Mind you, I thought that Andy Cook for Bradford looked like a right pain in the arse, buzzing around our defenders, constantly pressing and giving them no time, reminded me of a Vardy type, looked at his record: from Bishop, 33 years old and played lower leagues his whole career scoring plenty of goals. Probably couldn't hack the Championship but that sort of player is exactly what we've missed imo.
A lot of unnecessary panic caused due to our lack of quality fringe players according to quite a number of people , putting it in to context we had a scratch team that was cobbled together and realistically if we were to put a couple of them in to our first team they would in all likelihood look to be totally different players due to the quality of players that would help them . Let’s be honest not many will be forcing their way in to our starting eleven even though a lot of them are talented and possess the potential to develop in the future . It was a friendly match in which we chose to experiment consigned to history and quickly forgotten - end of story .
Totally agree, I think some people just want instant gratification and need all players to hit the ground running when in fact that is unusual. players take time to settle and young players even more so. On the flip side I do think we had some who struggled last year but in my humble opinion that was down to poor team tactics and asking young players to play out of position. Pierre Ekwah is a typical example of this, he was asked to work more a a defensive midfielder for most of last season which seen his form drop off a cliff, fans then lose faith in him and TBH this was a tactics and coaching fault. He is an attacking midfielder asked to do a defensive role. I believe he will become a very good attacking midfielder if played correctly as we have seen that from him but last year like I said poor tactics stunted his natural game.
Just caught up after being away on holiday. Thanks all for your contributions. Looking forward to today's game. Hhhaaa'wwwwaaaaayyyyyy the lads
