Ok, 4 draws and a win so far. A decent cup run. Undefeated this season. So who is performing and who isn't? My ratings so far, Mig has been outstanding so far, 9/10. Gardener is solid at RB, giving us width on the right as an overlapping full back, 7/10. Rose also has had a decent start as LB, fast and skilful, will be an exciting player to get permanently, 7/10. Bramble, apart from the Liverpool error, he has been solid in defence, very hard tackler and starting to show some form, 8/10. Cuellar has been outstanding in his few games played, good signing my MON, 8/10. OShea also has been in good form, his experience and cool head is a blessing for our team, 8/10. Johnson, haven't seen enough of him, in the 2 games so far, pretty average, 5/10. McLean has been pants so far, lacks confidence and is too one dimensional, needs improvement asap, 2/10. Sess also has been below his best, maybe lacking pre season, but we need him to improve, 5/10. Catts has been very impressive in the league, is a leader with his fighting qualities, we will miss him next 2 games, 7/10. Colback, not sure what other fans see in him, but at best he is a decent Championship player, or utility player, 5/10. Larrson, I have been impressed with his effort and vision in MF, works hard, which suprised me so far, and can also tackle, 7/10. Fletcher is a revelation, he scores when he wants, where would we be without his goalscoring ability, 9/10. Saha has been a useful player to have as a back up striker, lots of experience, 6/10. Campbell just isnt the same player as previous years, needs to be loaned out for confidence, 4/10. Our general game plan is very ordinary, MON needs to implement a more attacking and ball retention plan in order to make our style more atractive to watch. I feel we have been lucky so far with Mig and our defence being in such fine form. Two games (Swansea and Wigan), we were lucky to be playing against 10 men, Arsenal, Liverpool and even West Ham battered our goal for long periods while we defended for our lives. Such tactics will eventually fall to teams that go ahead against us. Other fans are welcome to their opinions and feel free to comment on anything you agree/disagree with. That is all.
agree with all that I will come back to us needing someone who can get us ticking in CM yesterday we never managed to kill the game up but in the end came away with the win and last week we never we do not have that player who can get us ticking in the middle and run the game, a player like that might cost us 10m or so but we are poor in central midfield IMO
I thought sess was looking back to his best yesterday so would push him up from 5-7. Agree pretty much with everything else. To me the only thing missing at the moment is a creative midfielder, bag one in january and we'll be flying imo
I haven't been able to see much of the games but surely McClean hasn't been as bad as a 2? He got the assist for Fletcher's goal and has 3 goals in the League Cup (unless you're only counting Premiership matches of course.)
I would agree with that apart from Colback and McClean In terms of Colback I genuinely can't believe anyone who has seen him play last season can say that, he had a poor game yesterday, but that aside has been very consistent, would give him a 6.5 so far this year, like the rest (Fletcher and Mig aside) he hasn't hit full stride as of yet McClean hasn't had the best of times but a 2/10 is simply ridiculous, I'd say a 5 as he has been poor, once he develops his game with his back to goal them he'll be fine. Also I'd bump Sess and Johnson up to 6's. Sess was getting back to his usual self yesterday and Johnson looked impressive in the second half. Overall a solid start, and tbph looking at our played games Wigan would be the only one where you would have expected 3 points, which was achieved. Still think this will be a good season for us, despite the pessimism
Yeh Phil, just based on the EPL games mate, just feel that he has lost the spark he had from last season, maybe the twitter remarks have been playing on his mind, not sure. Hope he lifts his game this week against City, or we will once again be playing with 10 men. Sorry if 2010 seems harsh, but I feel he is one of our weaker players at the moment. We have higher standards over in Australia
Fair play mate, a few people have said Premiership defenders have been doubling up on him because of his direct style of play, maybe he has to try and add a new dimension to his game. I definitely think the situation with the Ireland team will have affected him, but he just needs to get his head down (figuratively, not literally as he often does) and concentrate on Sunderland. I still like him as a player though, he always gives 100%, though maybe that's his flaw in a way...
All pretty spot on I think, perhaps its because we get Foxtel not BBC or Sky but honestly McClean is only worth what you gave him, as for setting up Fletcher....he was shooting and guess what, it was so bad it became a cross.
Its good to see the positive outlook from my fellow Sunderland fans, even though we are playing badly, we are still undefeated, Man City away this week With James McFadden about to sign, I feel with him and Saha, we now have an experienced back up forward line, decent defence, but weak CM ( Catts still suspended). Hopefully in January MON will rectify this. If we attack Man City like we did last season and get a result, fantastic, but I believe MON will play his counter attack style, which will backfire against City's powerful forward line. Not too bothered if we lose, but hopefully a positive performance, then 3 home games in the next 4 gamesfixtures, all winnable. Very excited about this season, anyone for a League Cup Final appearance (aka Milk Cup vs Norwich). That is all.
