Ahem, it could have been worse!! We could still have had those 30 odd chances and Cardiff could still have put that early one away if JR had not been at his very best In the build up to that Turner was wrong footed again. In amongst the worries about mis firing strikers a long hard look needs to be taken at whether we need a new centre back in January,
Should've known ex-Canary Marshall would get a clean sheet. City ex-players seem to play blinders against us.
Bennett always seems to play well when I see him, and he undoubtedly has potential to improve, so I'd rather see him starting ahead of Turner. If the chance was to arise to sign a quality CB though, I wouldn't say no! As I think I mentioned elsewhere, this January there's no obvious position that needs work, so we've got the 'luxury' of being able to improve wherever the best value for money can be found. Still would like to see an attacking midfielder though.
Turner was a little wrong footed but for me it was because of the way Bass was running. He just ran with his back to the ball towards our goal and completely lost any control over the situation. He does this about once a game and It always worried me. Just seems like a strange thing to do when a ball has been played over the top or in behind.
Here's a chilling stat to get your heads around This has to tighten up, we need to be much more ruthless in front of goal.
I can't see how you can say that when we have only won 8 games or so out of 28 or so. We have a problem finding the back of the net, it's obvious to me, am I missing something? I don't think this result's unusual I think it is pretty much the norm with how we play at the moment. When we win its unusual because it doesn't happen very often.
There's no disputing that we need to be more ruthless in front of goal, but you are grossly over-dramatising the stat about possession in relation to our not winning those games. The stat says that over last season and this, i.e. 47 games, we have only enjoyed 50% or more possession in fewer than a quarter. What you need to take from that is that we need to lift the percentage of games in which we have that level of possession. In any given match, there is little relationship between possession and outcome, but teams which consistently occupy top places in the possession tables also consistently occupy the top places in their leagues. Teams such as us (at the moment) dominate possession in games like yesterday's and against Hull, when we are gifted possession and faced by total defence. But take heart, this season we are generally moving in the right direction in respect of keeping the ball better.
We have been relying on others to be poor since midway through last season to get us out of dodge. It's going to catch up with you eventually. I think Newcastle will recover it though it's still early. Hope so anyway for our sake!
We can't expect Sunderland to sit on 1 point all season, they will pick up points at some point lol. But if I'm honest, I am little worried about this season.
Only a little because there's still a long way to go and we're playing well enough to keep my hopes up a bit.
Reflecting on most of the games we've been in control of this season the part which worries me the most is how indecisive we seem in the final third we dither about too much and stop moving the ball around, the box fills with the opposition players and it get's too scrappy.
