... as we all said, will be invaluable this season. The goal at Forest was so well practiced I bet the players were thinking it through on the bus down. Now we have 'unstoppable' defenders coming up for corners and free kicks you can actually see the opposition flinching. Chris Wood clearly didn't fancy challenging Alderete and the keeper looked terrified when he saw what was happening. And it's great to see us, at least, having a 50/50 chance of winning the ball from a throw in. It's quite poor that we've had so many seasons when balls have been slung in aimlessly so many times.
Man Utds defence wont fancy their chances against the lads next week, they are very poor at the back, I can see us scoring at least twice. Set plays will be crucial next week
Credit to this guy, and RLB/Speakman for having the foresight to bring him in: " Sunderland AFC's set-piece specialist is James Brayne, who was appointed as an Assistant Coach in August 2025 to lead the first-team's set-piece coaching for the upcoming 2025-26 Premier League season. Brayne, who joined from Charlton Athletic, is part of Head Coach Régis Le Bris's backroom staff " Plus you need the skill and physicality to go with it. Xhaka, Alderete, etc.
You can almost feel the opposition defenders trepidation when they see Omar, Nordi and Big Dan thundering in at them
Premiership game management is definitely changing, we're seeing goals from dead ball situations, long throw ins are back in vogue and Villa equalised from a long punt upfield yesterday. Teams seem to be moving away from constant tippy tappy in their own half although it still is happening. I noticed also in the Villa game the penalty area grappling wasn't so obvious...are teams learning?
