Football

Another well-intentioned performance, ending as we knew it would, in nothing. We’ve had plenty of frustrating afternoons this season and there'll no doubt be a few more to come, hoping against hope however that the law of averages comes into play against Hull on Tuesday.

Seems, theoretically, a decent few games are on deck for Gus and the lads; Hull is a game they can surely get something from, home to Villa is almost a freebie, West Ham are rolling downhill without crash pads and then cometh the derby against some barely known, grudge holding, stone faced weirdo!

Unfortunately, we’re Sunderland and we’re not very good at winning football matches. Thankfully, Hull aren't either. Couldn't even hazard a guess as to what the initial Gus gameplan was meant to be; before the introductions of Alvarez and Van Aanholt gave us a much-needed shot in the arm, the performance was up (or down) there with the most disjointed and ineffective we’ve produced in many a year. Still, they say any point away from home is a good one, and looking at the table this afternoon, I suppose I'm inclined to agree.

After the Stoke debacle and the first half at Newcastle we certainly deserved that. 

 
Jozy, you little rascal! Two goals on his debut for Toronto on Saturday night, improving upon his total over a season and a half's worth of football for Sunderland. Typical, bizarre and humorous in a tragic kind of way.

Superb game of football at the Bernabeu last night, end-to-end and very sporting on the pitch, if not elsewhere. Schalke wiped the floor with Real Madrid in the first half, and it was only thanks to Modric and of course, Ronaldo being Ronaldo, that they survived the onslaught in the second.

Hertha to beat Schalke at the weekend. 

 

Jozy, you little rascal! Two goals on his debut for Toronto on Saturday night, improving upon his total over a season and a half's worth of football for Sunderland. Typical, bizarre and humorous in a tragic kind of way.

According to EA Sports Jozy will be knocking them in for fun by around the 2017/18 season after joining Juventus or Real or Fulham (another of their odd specialty cases). 

To be honest, I wouldn't rule that out. Apart from the bit about Fulham of course, it seems a little far-fetched for them to pay the £25m he'll no doubt be valued at by then.

Oh dear, Jose.

Oh dear, Jose.

Oh no, the nation's nonexistent love affair with Chelsea is in turmoil!

Always fine with a pile up at the altar of Moronho and Chelsea but to have Graeme Souness decrying all dem dirty foreigners for ungentlemanly conduct was pretty hilarious considering his own outstanding contribution to skullduggery and bastardliness as a player and a manager over several decades. You could also see young Thierry biting his tongue fairly sharply so as to not make the same point.

Jose did the exact same thing last year in the first leg against Atletico and was spectacularly punished for it in the second. Masterplans and everything else aside, his approach to big games seems to be having his team do as little as possible. What a performance from PSG, though. Between this and Monaco at the Emirates, you wonder if Ligue 1 gets the credit it deserves.

I think it's more a case of the premier league being overrated?

It's both, a lot people were practically falling out of their chairs laughing when Arsenal drew Monaco and PSG are always regarded as a big fish in a small, grey pond.

I can't help wondering what would've happened if Ben Foster hadn't had that brain fart at the end of the first West Brom game but boy am I glad he did! Suddenly we're bound for Wembley, Agbonlahor's flying, Benteke's flying and N'Zogbia is at least partially levitating. It obviously aids the cause when you're playing a team who were utterly putrid but we played good stuff regardless. Michael, the supporters weren't exactly enamored with Poyet before, is this a step beyond? A quick sacking before the Newcastle game has worked before!

On 14/03/2015 at 5:48 PM, Frederick said:

I can't help wondering what would've happened if Ben Foster hadn't had that brain fart at the end of the first West Brom game but boy am I glad he did! Suddenly we're bound for Wembley, Agbonlahor's flying, Benteke's flying and N'Zogbia is at least partially levitating. It obviously aids the cause when you're playing a team who were utterly putrid but we played good stuff regardless. Michael, the supporters weren't exactly enamored with Poyet before, is this a step beyond? A quick sacking before the Newcastle game has worked before!

Witnessed the game first hand, unfortunately. It was up there with the worst Sunderland performances I’ve ever seen, and trust me, I've seen some corkers over the years. If not for the Villa players visibly taking pity on us in the second half, they could and probably would have eclipsed our stuffing at Southampton in October. Credit where it's due, Timothy has instilled some fight into the team and even appears to have solved the N'zogbia conundrum.

I think we can all agree that big changes need to be made, but when your squad is made up of weaklings and shirkers who aren't prepared to pass and move, track back and do the basics, you wonder what can be done to make things better between now and May. I'm not saying that the criticism coming Poyet's way isn't entirely justified or even that he deserves to keep his job, just that there must come a point when we have to recognise that our seemingly never-ending malaise isn't just about the manager. To be fair to Ellis Short, he's consistently funded deals for players who really should be decent performers, and yet we constantly seem stuck on square one. We continue to throw money at a problem that shouldn't even be there, and every dreadful signing and managerial appointment only seems to make things worse. I can't pretend to understand it, all I know is that it's been happening for far too long.

Wazza not anticipating contact. There's a first time for everything. :lullaby:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovewdru_Jjo&feature=youtu.be

Well, there we have it. You'd have to say that the best case scenario now is that we appoint a caretaker and that three from Hull, Burnley, Leicester and QPR do us a massive favour by getting themselves relegated. Whoever we appoint in the long term, we'll always be Sunderland. Great club, but terrible players with a terrible attitude, who see us as either a stepping stone to something better or a nice big payday when they've failed elsewhere. The next manager will be left with the same corrosive element in the dressing room and unless he's strong enough to stand up to it, the cycle will almost certainly start again.

No need to play Devil's Advocaat on the Poyet sacking, it's Big Dick to the rescue!