Reason to be less than cheerful
Martin O’Neill could have put it an awful lot more strongly. Instead, in his post-match e-mail to Monsieur Salut, he chooses a mild form of rebuke for his players after an embarrassing capitulation to Bolton Wanderers – whose fans, mocked for their no-show at the Reebok, can also chortle at the size of the Stadium of Light attendance, just 17,500 – and rues a “bitterly disappointing” and meek end to those fanciful 40th anniversary dreams …
Dear Colin,
It’s bitterly disappointing. We’ve gone out of a competition we did so well in last season very meekly.
After the performance on Saturday it’s disappointing that we can’t put two consecutive performances like that together.
We didn’t do enough in the game.
We need to have consistency; otherwise we’re going to go nowhere.
Today we needed to put another performance together; that’s’ the sign of a good team but we we were unable to do that.
We were forced into making changes with [Steven] Fletcher out due to illness, but that shouldn’t matter – that was as strong a side as we could put out.
Jake's imagination
Last season we had a good run in the competition and that run gave us the momentum to keep going in the league too.
Now all the effort that was put into the second half at Bolton means nothing after we’ve gone out of the competition meekly.
We had a couple off opportunities that we could have done better with but it wasn’t enough in the end.
All the best,
Beware of forgeries
Martin O’Neill
Sunderland News 24/7
Last night’s result just goes to show that MON is right when he says that we don’t have enough strength in depth.
At least he is trying to doi something about it in this window.Three more signings ( RFB, Striker, and MF) and we should be ok for this season,then replace a few of our weaker players in such as Kilgallon ,Bramble ,Saha, McFadden,Bardsley in the summer .Sadly I have a feeling that Wes Brown will be calling time on his career at the end of this season.
This would however leave us a bit short of central defenders so on thst theme can someone tell me what has happened to Louis Laing? I thought that him and John Egan were the next two to break into the team from the development squad. I know Egan is recovering from a broken leg,but what has gone wrong with Laing?
Sixer can probably answer that Michael, depending on how often SAFC is allowing people to attend reserve games this season
I think meek and mild about sums it up,.They hardly broke sweat,and nothing to do with the numbing cold.Methinks a case of they thought they just need turn out and a win was guaranteed,and we all know what happens when players start thinking like that.
If we’re going off last night, there’s at least 7 other players to be added to Michael’s list; if it’s the performances over the season I’d personally add McClean – busted flush springs to mind – and as for Campbell…oh dear.