Borini nets sensational goal as Sunderland defeat Livingston. Fabio Borini scored twice as Sunderland overcame Scottish side Livingston in a behind closed door friendly at the Stadium of Light. The Italian striker broke the deadlocked after 28minutes before netting a wonder goal minutes before half-time from the edge of the box. Seb Larsson rounded off the scoring in the second half from the penalty spot as Sunderland ran out comfortable winners. With no match this weekend due to Everton’s involvement in the Emirate’s FA Cup, Sam Allardyce took the opportunity to give some players in his squad a run out. It was also a worthwhile opportunity for Allardyce to give Larsson some more valuable minutes under his belt following his return from a lengthy spell on the side-lines. Sunderland started well and should’ve gone ahead through Dame N’Doye when a neat ball fell to his feet inside the area but unfortunately the striker couldn’t get the ball out of his feet and the chance went a miss. The Lads continued to pile the pressure on and broke the deadlock minutes before the half-hour mark through Borini. A neat move on the edge of the box fell to Borini’s feet inside the 18-yard area and the Italian drilled the ball into the back of the net. Sunderland came again and doubled their advantage shortly before half-time when Larsson showed great awareness to pick the Italian out on the edge of the box. The Swede’s ball dropped nicely to Borini’s feet and he showed his class by flicking the ball up well before volleying it over Livingston’s keeper. Sunderland went into half-time with a commanding lead and extended that further 10 minutes after the restart. Jeremain Lens – who came on at the start of the second 45 – drove into the box and was brought down, leaving the referee with no choice but to award a penalty. Larsson stepped up and sent the keeper the wrong way to round off some extremely valuable game time for himself. Sunderland closed the game out and will see this as a decent work-out ahead of next weekend’s hotly anticipated Tyne-Wear derby. Sunderland starting XI: Pickford, Jones, Kaboul, Kone, Yedlin, Cattermole, E Robson, Larsson, Toivonen, Borini, N’Doye.
Christ, at first glance I thought we were playing the first team with a youngun chucked in! Reading more carefully, only expect a couple of them (at most) to be playing against the mags. Shows we have quite decent strength in depth... I'd assume against the mags we'll start: Mannone, Eboue, Kone, O Shea, PVA, Kirchhoff, Mvila, Rodders, Lens, Khazri, Defoe Possibly Yedlin for Eboue and Borini for Lens?
Love the way he tees himself up, tricky to do, you can end up stamping your studs into your own foot.
Great goal. He has to start against the mags! Him and Defoe will scare the hell out of the mags. Again!
It's exactly what Big Sam has been playing recently, except for Eboue in for Yedlin and Lens in for N'Doye - both upgrades imo (more hope than anything in the case of Eboue!)
