Unlucky really the lads dug in and did really well. Without a silly 94th minute error they’re all hero’s
People will be leaving at half time if this keeps up we are back to the Beale days, lets play crap in the first half on Tuesday then better the 2nd eh
Me too mate. Game plan was spot on to counter act their play style and we just made a silly error. They did nothing against us til then really
I just can’t mate I see him every time we play and try to stay level headed but that’s an absolutely ridiculous comment the lads battled like warriors in hardened times. The whole bench today was our U21 squad for the season and we should’ve had 3 points!
4 of those walk into most sides in the championship now! And we just drew against the most firm team in the league! And it was more by luck than management for them! Poor finishing cost us
In your opinion you have no idea if subs would’ve won us the game. None. It’s an assumption based only on opinion a d not fact. I don’t either. But I also won’t sit here and say it’s costing us when one of his subs should’ve won that (and only by a whisker didn’t). Missed chance cost us that game. Not opinion, fact. We had 2 which should’ve ended up in the net second half. So, we weren’t great, yet still should’ve scored 2 goals. Much like Coventry. Poor finishing cost us then too.
Relocated from X. Gave me a hearty chuckle. Lively, friendly atmosphere at King’s Cross as a load of football fans converge. American tourist: “what language were those guys singing in?” Those guys were Sunderland fans.
If this is our bad run it’s pretty decent being undefeated in it. I still want to take a strong elastic to Aleksics knackers for the miss but he showed glimpses of skill and could be a good player for us. The sitting back in the second half I put on the players no way I can see RLB telling them to. However he needs to make substitutions when players are looking ****ed.
Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but can anyone who was at the game summarise how Aleksic played. Interested in the things the cameras don't pick up on, movement off the ball, positioning etc. Any info would be appreciated.
https://bsky.app/profile/petersc1.bsky.social/post/3lbooptjsgc26 @petersc1.bsky.social A bit of perspective after yesterday game. We’ve played 5 of the 7 teams just behind us and lost 1 of them. We are top after 16 games,undefeated in 9 and undefeated at home. We are ahead of most fans preseason target of playoffs. Long way to go but let’s enjoy it. #safc
I was angry and frustrated after the game but really pleased with a point today because, that's how I'd have felt, if they'd scored first or equalised earlier ... it's the timing that hurt. In reality we've seen a severely disrupted game played in awful conditions. Not only that we had players out of position, back from injury, an a further injury to Connolly at the worst time, a young debutant and all that against a team with no option but to throw everything at us. I wanted subs but that may have further disrupted a team that was winning ... it's easy to say they'd have won us the game, we might have lost it then the manager is 'at fault'. Sadly, in my opinion, we ended up with a lightweight midfield that didn't suit the game and failed to protect the defence enough. We allowed Millwall to dictate the play and didn't have anyone calm enough to put their foot on the ball and keep possession. The defence battled all game, against an awful 'style' of play, but only allowed a handful of half chances. They've just beaten Leeds and Burnley so a point, down there, is a good one realistically. I have to say, what on earth do the Millwall supporters get out of watching that side. It's dreadful football and, as with the likes of Luton, I see people saying 'it's effective' ... ... so are laxatives but they're a bitter pill to swallow and just create a load of shyte.
As that move developed Watson, for whatever reason, stopped running when he could've had a goal. He should've either given Aleksic an option to square the ball or at least occupy the defence. I'm sure he'll be coached and improved but he needed someone, on the pitch, to give him a few words when he was looking lost.
I agree and this goes for Rigg, Jobe , Watson etc all very young players but need help and guidance on the pitch and in training. But what a future we have if this way of bringing players in continues. And to add all very good players already.
Just read this FourFourTwo article that they put out yesterday morning. Not bad: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/foo...-of-nowhere/ar-AA1uCspj?ocid=sapphireappshare (The website is a bit ropey so I've copied the text) How Sunderland have become so good - out of nowhere Sunderland have the youngest side in the Championship, failed to impress last season, and did not significantly bolster their side in the summer... yet a Premier League return could be on the cards After going close to back-to-back promotions via the play-offs in 2022/23, last season was a big old nothing for Sunderland. After some promising early-season form that put them fourth after 10 games, a malaise set in that did not lift for the rest of the campaign. Sunderland lost to all but four of the rest of the Championship at some point over the campaign, with relegated Huddersfield joining automatically promoted Leicester and Ipswich in doing the double over them. Tony Mowbray was regretfully dismissed in December. Michael Beale lasted barely two months in the job before being dismissed following consecutive defeats at struggling Huddersfield and Birmingham. Caretaker Mike Dodds oversaw a pretty dismal end to the campaign – just two wins from 13 – but the bottom-of-the-table pack was already so firmly entrenched that it didn’t particularly matter. And now… under summer appointment Regis Le Bris, Sunderland sit top of the Championship, having taken more league wins (nine) and scoring as many goals (25) in the first 15 games of this season than did in the final 30 games of last term. Their rate of clean sheets has more than doubled, from 28 per cent last season to 60 per cent this. They have lost just twice. Where before there was boredom and apathy, now there is excitement. How far can this team go? And can they stay the course and end an eight-year exile from the Premier League, half of which was spent down in League One? Youthful Kyril Louis-Dreyfus arrived as a co-owner of the club in February 2021, becoming the majority shareholder in May last year alongside 36 per cent owner Juan Sartori. Under the Swiss-French billionaire – a member of the extremely wealthy shipping magnate Louis-Dreyfus family – Sunderland have invested in the squad, with a particular focus on young talents. However, this is not a story of a very wealthy owner pumping shedloads of cash intot he club to try and take them back to the promised land. Yes, Sunderland’s wage bill swelled by more than 50 per cent following their promotion back to the Championship in 2022 – but this really only brought them in line with the divisional average. As the best-attended side in the Championship, Sunderland had the third-highest revenues excluding parachute payments in the division in 2022/23 (the last year for which numbers are available), with their £8.9m loss before tax relatively small by wacky spend-heavy Championship standards. They made several signings this summer, but mostly free transfers who have barely featured or not featured at all. What we have seen from Sunderland so far this season instead owes itself to the coming of age of a number of young players, clinical finishing, adaptable tactics, excellent goalkeeping… and a little bit of luck. With an average of 23.3, Sunderland have had the youngest starting XI in the Championship this season. But even in that youthful side, Chris Rigg stands out as a success story. The academy graduate broke into the side as a 15-year-old early last year and was gradually introduced to first team action before establishing himself as a regular starter this season. Still just 17, Rigg has become the youngest goalscorer in League Cup history and the youngest league goalscorer ever for Sunderland. Despite being the division’s top scorers, Sunderland do not have a superstar goalscorer, instead sharing the goals around the team, and England youth international Rigg has played his part in that with three goals so far. A tricky dribbler who operates in attacking midfield, Rigg captured particular attention in September with a sensational backheeled winner from a near-impossibly narrow-angle against rivals Middlesbrough. Yet despite the exciting talents littering their side, there is a sense that Sunderland may be in a false position. Go off xG game by game according to data we have compiled from Infogol, and Sunderland should have just 22 points with six wins, four draws and five losses and a goal difference of just +2, which would put them 9th or 10th – distinctly mid-table form. Instead they are top of the table, with nine wins, four draws, just two losses, and a goal difference of +14. The difference between stats and reality? Outperforming the numbers at both ends of the pitch. Keeping that up in front of goal is difficult over a season: there’s always a side or two at this level who get that run of good luck early in the season before falling away once deviation to the mean catches up to them. Sunderland’s top scorer Romaine Mundle, for example, has 4 goals from xG of 1.69 from the left wing; he is exceptionally unlikely to keep scoring at nearly three times his expected goals rate for the rest of the campaign. There are some signs creeping into the stats that the season should be turning against Sunderland. After dominating the chances in the first four games (all won) despite playing largely on the counter-attack, Sunderland have “won” just two of their past 11 according to the xG. Those questions around the sustainability of their form have been helped along by a run of three draws in a row – but if there is hope for Sunderland that they can avoid the dreadful gravity of underlying statistics, it is at the other end of the field. A good goalkeeper is a good goalkeeper. And this season, Antony Patterson has been great. Another academy graduate, goalkeeper Patterson has one of the highest save percentages of any goalkeeper in the division this season (79.4 per cent), and no other regular goalkeeper in the Championship keeps out shots that he shouldn’t with greater frequency: two of the nine he has conceded have been penalties, and another two were own goals. Patterson picked up an injury in late October, but deputy Simon Moore has conceded just twice in four games in his absence – both of which came in the 2-2 draw against Coventry on the eve of the international break. That could be crucial in Sunderland’s ongoing bid to defy the stats and continue their excellent, table-topping form. The Huddersfield side that unexpectedly finished third in 2021/22, for instance, had a particular knack for refusing to lose even games, doing so just once over the regular season, thanks in large part to the near-faultless performances of Championship goalkeeper of the year Lee Nicholls. There is also legitimacy in the hope that this young team can only get better with experience and inter-personal familiarity; while Le Bris has taken an admirably pragmatic, game-by-game approach to his tactics. Sunderland have dominated and won games with 35 per cent possession (away to Cardiff on the opening day) and 64 per cent possession (at home to Oxford) this season. Sometimes they set up 4-3-3, sometimes they drop an extra man back a bit deeper and go 4-2-3-1. Momentum and belief can be wonderful things, and if Sunderland can rebound from the blow of letting a two-goal lead slip to a 2-2 draw at home to Coventry last time out, Sunderland could well ride their current wave all the way through to the end of the season. Whether that will be enough to keep them in the automatic promotion places is another matter: the chasing pack have all made up ground on the league leaders over the past month or so, and Sunderland are currently top only on goal difference. But with 31 points already in the bag, a top six finish at the very least is a reasonable expectation.
