Sunderland travel to Carrow Road to face Norwich City in the Championship. Last time out Sunderland lost to Swansea and Norwich drew with Blackburn. The Black Cats remain in 10th place and are now 8 points off a play-off spot. Mike Dodds was without Dan Ballard & Jack Clarke and changed to a back 3 against the Swans he also gave Callum Styles a surprise debut. Clarke and Ballard are both unavailable again, Seelt and Mundle are expected to step up. Alese, Cirkin, Dack, Huggins, Evans, Roberts and Embleton remain on the injured list. Luke O’Nien is one booking away from a 2-match suspension. Ba and Hume are also close to suspension as both have eight bookings. Norwich had been hoping to boost their play-off hopes after putting together a five-match unbeaten run going into the Blackburn game, having won on their five previous visits. The point from the 1-1 draw was enough to see the Canaries back into seventh place, but they remain three points behind sixth-placed Hull. Norwich had taken the lead with a Nacho Nunez free-kick, but the Chile international limped off with a suspected hamstring injury late in the game. The Canaries are now nine league games unbeaten at home, stretching back to early November. Mike Dodds: "It didn't work [in the first half]. I don't think you need to be a football expert to see that. "One thing I demonstrated last time and I will keep reiterating is that while I am in this position, I am going to make bold decisions. Sometimes that's going to be a positive and sometimes that's going to be negative. "The ironic thing was we wanted to be bold and really aggressive in terms of tagging certain players, and second half in terms of our set-up we were actually more reserved but looked more aggressive. "Clearly first half there were one or two things I wasn't happy with. The second half was miles better. But we have to take that first 45 minutes on the chin - myself, the staff, the players, all of us." David Wagner: "A frustrating result but performance-wise I've seen a lot of good things. We played through our structure, everyone put a shift in, we created very good opportunities. "The one thing we have to complain about is that we were not ruthless and clinical enough. "We concede from a corner, it's too easy, this is something where you have to be better but this is football, sometimes you have opportunities to score three, four goals in a game, today we haven't. "We only have one point but we take it and we move on. Nothing gets decided today but we keep pushing like we've done in recent weeks. "Now we recover and we have a home game against Sunderland, a big one for us but all the games are big." "Then a free-kick in the opposition's half. No-one steps forward to press, one ball in the channel, no marking in the box. We don't need to concede a goal like that.” Form: Match Appointments: Referee: KIRK THOMAS Assistant Referees: Matthew Smith & Matthew McGrath Fourth Official: Daniel Middleton Team Lineups: Sunderland AFC: (4-3-3) Patterson, Hume, O’Nien, Seelt, Hjelde, Ekwah, Styles, Neil, Mundle, Rusyn, Ba Subs: Bishop, Pembele, Aouchiche, Burstow, Jobe, Hemir, Rigg, Kelly, Lavery Injured: Huggins, Cirkin, Evans, Dack, Alese, Embleton, Roberts, Clarke Unavailable: Ballard (suspended) Norwich (4-2-3-1) Gunn, Stacey, Hanley, Gibson, Giannouls, Barnes, McLean, Fassnacht, Gomes, Sainz, Sargent Subs: Gibbs, Long, van Hooijdonk, McCallum, Sørensen, Batth, Hernández, Fisher Injured: Rowe, Duffy, Nunez Betting Odds: Sunderland 5/2 Norwich 21/20 Draw 5/2 Prutton Predicts: 2-1 My two pence: After a disappointing start to his 3rd interim head coach game against Swansea I hope that Mike Dodds learns from his tactical mistakes and gets the team back on track. Given Sunderland’s history on relegation battles and promotion pushes I’m not going to write us off just yet, but it must be getting close after the performances from the last few games. The loss of our top scorer for 6 weeks will not help. I’m going for a 1-1 draw Live Stream: Available to overseas fans https://safc.com/news/team-news/live-video Press conference for this fixture is Thursday (probably 1 - 1:30pm) Ha’way the Lads
Fair comments from Dodds about the Swansea game, he's not in denial. Whatever the formation and setup surely he'll want us to play with the same energy and pressing that we did in the second half but from the start.
Really not sure on this one as IMO even though MD claimed he was looking for an aggressive approach last week we still played with 2 and at times three deep lying central midfielders which contributed to the lack of progress at the top of the pitch. Once Ekwah started to play higher up the pitch in the opposition half we looked more comfortable and this allowed Jobe to start harrying their defenders. It was not a great performance but we have got to find a way to not allow our central midfielders to keep sitting deep as it is detrimental to what we are trying to achieve. Not sure if this is MD and MP tactics or the players but it has been happening since before TM left and TBH our form has dropped off a cliff since we adopted this style of play.
Wouldn't mind seeing Hemir start with Mundle right and Rusyn left of him in a front 3, Neil, Styles and Rigg in a 3 man midfield could be interesting as well. Head says a draw would be a good result, heart wants the 3 points
Feel exactly l like I did last time we went here and was pleasantly surprised, same again please Sunderland
I agree with the post which said it could take a fair few games to change the defensive style we've adopted... hoping for another surprise down there, but doubt it. Narrow home win.
Interesting team you've suggested, Jobe will likely play but what about Mundle, Hemir, Rusyn as the front three?
Dodds has to get the basics right...they were all over the place against Swansea. Back 4 of Hume,Seelt,O9 and Hjelde. Styles sitting in front of them,flanked by Neil and one of Ekwah,Rigg or Adil. 3 up front....Ba on the right,Mundle on the left and Rusyn in the middle,or,my preference,Mundle on the right,Rusyn on the left and Hemir through the middle. A draw will be a good result.
Hope your suggested team is correct , Dodds got it spectacularly wrong v Swansea , wrong formation , wrong players , and was too slow in reacting I said ten minutes in to the game three at the back was not going to work but changes were not made until half time when we were two nil down .
We have a decent recent record at Carrow Rd and last season they were flying and we were struggling so anything can happen. unfortunately it feels like we have no cutting edge up front without Clarke and to a lesser extend Roberts. 2-0 Norwich
Great thread RTB shame about the recent form, but I fancy us to get a result down there , pressure is off us and on them, giving us a chance of an upset Oau ,
