Well that was a bad day at the office!
A dominant and incisive Sunderland performance but an equally lacklustre and naive one from ourselves. Its not often we can say 'Lambert got it wrong' but I think the diamond was a mistake last night. But that's as far as I'm going to go in terms of criticising the manager and his team. As I said - it was a bad day at the office. Everyone should just forget about that performance and move on. We can't play well every week and in the Premier League if you have an 'off day' you will be heavily punished. But there is really no need for panic.
The time to panic would be if we lose four on the trot, or equally if we suddenly find ourselves four points above the drop zone. As it happens, we are one match closer to safety and maintained our comfortable 11 point cushion over the bottom three. I know its difficult not to get carried away with what we have achieved so far this season, but lets not take our eyes off the ultimate prize. Our aim at the start of the season was always 17th or above and it should still be the aim. The giddy heights of the top half are great, but there are some big and well established clubs which have trailed us for much of the season so far and its wrong to think that we can waltz into this tough division and finish above them. We currently sit 11th - did anyone really see us being there with just 15 games to go?
Last night went to show how hard this division is. Campbell's goal was sublime - even I was applauding it, such was the quality of the strike. The 2nd goal, although preventable, was a fabulous piece of football from the hosts. In messrs Campbell, Gardner, McLean and the brilliant Sessegnon, Sunderland possessed the four best players on the pitch and their performances elevated their team way above ours on the night. But the fact remains, we are still a good side ourselves. We could blame the pitch, which was terrible by the way, we could blame the ref, who had a bit of a stinker, but in the end we were basically just beaten by a better team, with better players, and a manager who has got his team buzzing. There is no shame losing to Sunderland - they beat Man City a couple of weeks ago!
And in O'Neill, they have 'the one that got away'. I can't be the only one wondering what could have been had our former chairman backed our then manager by signing Dean Windass... I very much doubt we would have suffered even a quarter of the traumas we have done in the past 15 years had O'Neill stuck around a bit longer! I got the feeling Lambert was a little overwhelmed by it all last night. I have no idea if that's true or not but it was the impression I got. He didn't seem his usual self and neither did his team. Some of the players seemed to lack effort and drive, they certainly lacked the quality last night. But as I said above, its difficult to have a go at the players because they have produced sterling effort after sterling effort this season - one poor performance and everyone jumps on their backs.
Well, I won't. Let's hit straight back against Bolton on Saturday.
Then last night will be consigned to the history books.
OTBC ILWT
A dominant and incisive Sunderland performance but an equally lacklustre and naive one from ourselves. Its not often we can say 'Lambert got it wrong' but I think the diamond was a mistake last night. But that's as far as I'm going to go in terms of criticising the manager and his team. As I said - it was a bad day at the office. Everyone should just forget about that performance and move on. We can't play well every week and in the Premier League if you have an 'off day' you will be heavily punished. But there is really no need for panic.
The time to panic would be if we lose four on the trot, or equally if we suddenly find ourselves four points above the drop zone. As it happens, we are one match closer to safety and maintained our comfortable 11 point cushion over the bottom three. I know its difficult not to get carried away with what we have achieved so far this season, but lets not take our eyes off the ultimate prize. Our aim at the start of the season was always 17th or above and it should still be the aim. The giddy heights of the top half are great, but there are some big and well established clubs which have trailed us for much of the season so far and its wrong to think that we can waltz into this tough division and finish above them. We currently sit 11th - did anyone really see us being there with just 15 games to go?
Last night went to show how hard this division is. Campbell's goal was sublime - even I was applauding it, such was the quality of the strike. The 2nd goal, although preventable, was a fabulous piece of football from the hosts. In messrs Campbell, Gardner, McLean and the brilliant Sessegnon, Sunderland possessed the four best players on the pitch and their performances elevated their team way above ours on the night. But the fact remains, we are still a good side ourselves. We could blame the pitch, which was terrible by the way, we could blame the ref, who had a bit of a stinker, but in the end we were basically just beaten by a better team, with better players, and a manager who has got his team buzzing. There is no shame losing to Sunderland - they beat Man City a couple of weeks ago!
And in O'Neill, they have 'the one that got away'. I can't be the only one wondering what could have been had our former chairman backed our then manager by signing Dean Windass... I very much doubt we would have suffered even a quarter of the traumas we have done in the past 15 years had O'Neill stuck around a bit longer! I got the feeling Lambert was a little overwhelmed by it all last night. I have no idea if that's true or not but it was the impression I got. He didn't seem his usual self and neither did his team. Some of the players seemed to lack effort and drive, they certainly lacked the quality last night. But as I said above, its difficult to have a go at the players because they have produced sterling effort after sterling effort this season - one poor performance and everyone jumps on their backs.
Well, I won't. Let's hit straight back against Bolton on Saturday.
Then last night will be consigned to the history books.
OTBC ILWT
great post Superman
