Obviously didn't work mr bruce!! Can't believe steed our best player tuesday night was dropped and we went 5 at back, this was just inviting pressure, one again we lose two goals in the last 15-20 mins. Same old sunderland i said we would start to struggle, lets have a look see where we are after the next 4 games! Should have won today, joke
I don't think you can blamethe tactics at all, their first 2 goals were both mistakes by Gordon and our CB bring out muscled. Its true they should not have stood but in some ways it was karma for catts hand ball at the sol. We might have lost by more with 4 at the back.
think bruce felt with stoke just bypassing midfield with launched balls foreward he could be a bit lighter in midfield and decided to go five at the back it worked in open play so i dont think it was wrong in that sense even though we lost it was more a case of poor tactics at defending set pieces having a line 2 metres out dosent give the goalkeeper or the defence time or space to deal with the quality of the ball witch pennent put in it all happens too quick and fouls and offsides go unoticed by the reff and linesman they would of loved us playing so close to the goal as they allways have the advantage as stoke have more hight than us we were allways going to struggle we might of got beat worse with a defender less we will never know but we still scored two goals with the midfield we had out and should of come away with something from the game
I understand Bruces thinking but there was just too many defenders and ultimatley too many bodys in the box! Im under no illusion that if we went 4-4-2 we would of run the midfield and absolutley battered them! I like that we have a boss thats not afraid to change the formation though!
Trying to look at it unbaisedly I don't think Gordon was fouled, if he was it was a very soft one. Gordon tried to go through a crowd of players for the ball and did not make it. If the shoe was on the other foot we would have felt hard done by. He has made to bad mistakes in 2 games, he has also made 2 world class saves in those 2 games which have saved goals. I like Gordon but we always look venerable from Set peices no matter who we are playing.
think he wanted to give mensah a run out without dropping anton and thouhgt this game was the one to try as i dont think bruce is to happy with our defence of late and he is trying some new things to try and tighten up at the back bruce is no fool when it comes to defending and given time he will get it right
I had a thought last night that maybe SB would play Mensah as cover in front of the back four, like a deep lying DM. But I was surprised to see that he almost did that today. I believe his thinking was right but the "back 5" played far too deep. Having said that, what more could SB have done? We did not defend at all well for set pieces. Same old story. Surley there must be some coach that can be brought in? Would be worth 10+ goals a season if this aspect can be strengthened. But, most of all, I thought we should have scored more goals today against a team like Stoke. Maybe the defensive set up was justified away at Stoke but this team's strength is in pacey attacking play. They were constrained in that regard today. Maybe if SB had been braver, we could have won 7-6. What the heck do I know. I am not criticising SB. Just wondering, in hindsight, what might have been done diferently.
could do a lot worse than look at a few old arsenal clips of the way they dealt with that type of play boy were they good at it there would of been no doubt about the offside the way they moved out they had it down to a fine art under george graham, something will have to be done because everbody knows how to beat us ,even a good football side will use this ploy agaist us if needed
TBH I liked the look of yesterdays team. Up till the 80th minuet I thought we'd win. Only Sunderland played any Football which at times looked very good. Stoke are a shocking team that said they do what they do very well. We knew what to expect and in most cases dealt with them very well. In the end we got nowt off the ref. Two of the goals should of been disallowed but them's the breaks. Just be thankful you don't have to watch Stoke every week. Horrible team.
