Sunderland (A) - Match thread

[Premier ram]

Was at the game last night, would like to say how magnificent the Rams support was , never stopped singing , encouraging and supporting our team , as for the match , yet again I don’t think there was anything between the two sides , the first goal came from an error on our part and the second was due to a player being out of position, the lads gave everything again and were very unfortunate with a couple of chances in the 2nd half , back to PP on Saturday against a QPR side that hasn’t had the best of starts , hopefully our boys can prolong their misery COYR

[Crewton]

Having only just seen the highlights, I think that Sunderland got lucky on two occasions. Once when Harness ' shot hit a defenders chest and deflected out and secondly when the keeper made a point blank save from Cash and the ball fell kindly for them.

[Anag Ram]

17 minutes ago, Premier ram said:

Was at the game last night, would like to say how magnificent the Rams support was , never stopped singing , encouraging and supporting our team , as for the match , yet again I don’t think there was anything between the two sides , the first goal came from an error on our part and the second was due to a player being out of position, the lads gave everything again and were very unfortunate with a couple of chances in the 2nd half , back to PP on Saturday against a QPR side that hasn’t had the best of starts , hopefully our boys can prolong their misery COYR

Nice to hear.

[Eoghan1884]

We’ve had three hard games in a row, could have been a very different story had we held on at sheff utd and got something (which I think we deserved) against Norwich. We are through that now tho and I think we need to beat QPR at home and then beat one of Millwall or Oxford away which would leave us on 15 points after 11 games which is a good start in my opinion considering 6 (QPR, Millwall, Oxford, Stoke, Plymouth, Preston) of our next 8 games are against teams I’d expect to finish in the bottom half of the league. Over them 8 games 13 points would be a great and achievable return. 
 

Hopefully the lads and fans can put the last three games behind them and get pumped back up to go again on Saturday. 

[CBRammette]

4 hours ago, i-Ram said:

What is going on with him is that he is back in the Championship. He really never has been any good at that level, except for one year perhaps many seasons ago with Cardiff iirc? League 1 really is his level, especially now at his age, where in an attacking sense he is largely a one-trick pony that a decent full back should be able to keep pretty quiet. Him having the ball in our half of the field has always been a huge liability.

Yes sadly you may be right. Time will tell but I'm sure he still smells nice 😂

[LittleEatonRam]

19 hours ago, HorsforthRam said:

I liked that he wasn’t on about “fine margins”. He was talking about keeping the ball, waiting for opportunities, things that I have wanted in our play for a long time. He said he was infuriated with little attempts at first time flicks whereas he wanted the players to take one or two touches or “receive the contact”. This is a different message to when we were in League 1. I think he recognises we really need to progress to be more comfortable with the ball but we aren’t near that yet, especially away from home. As Bramcote says above, I’m pleased he acknowledges that there is work to be done by himself and his staff in terms of coaching. In terms of effort, having watched the likes of Man U last weekend, I think he’s got the team spirit and work ethic right. 

It's early days but I've noticed that we are playing a slightly different way from last season, with perhaps more of a discernible 'style' this time around. Less reliant on set pieces, keen to keep possession etc. I like the way it's going.

[Osbaldwick]

Sunderland supporter I work with was at the game, reckoned we were the best support he could remember in a long time, very loud and constant. I understand we didn’t think much of their light show at the start. Also said he thought we gave them a better game than most and won’t have any problem staying up. Guess we’ll see! 

[rammieib]

1 hour ago, Osbaldwick said:

Sunderland supporter I work with was at the game, reckoned we were the best support he could remember in a long time, very loud and constant. I understand we didn’t think much of their light show at the start. Also said he thought we gave them a better game than most and won’t have any problem staying up. Guess we’ll see! 

Thing is, especially away from home - giving them a game isn’t much use if we keep coming home with nil points.

If you give a team 65% possession, keeping a clean sheet is nigh on impossible in the Championship away from home.

[europia]

9 hours ago, i-Ram said:

What is going on with him is that he is back in the Championship. He really never has been any good at that level, except for one year perhaps many seasons ago with Cardiff iirc? League 1 really is his level, especially now at his age, where in an attacking sense he is largely a one-trick pony that a decent full back should be able to keep pretty quiet. Him having the ball in our half of the field has always been a huge liability.

Tend to agree, NML certainly wasn't great against Norwich. Giving him the captaincy was poor judgement from Warney. Unless NML improves he actually won't be getting many starts. 

[brady1993]

11 hours ago, i-Ram said:

What is going on with him is that he is back in the Championship. He really never has been any good at that level, except for one year perhaps many seasons ago with Cardiff iirc? League 1 really is his level, especially now at his age, where in an attacking sense he is largely a one-trick pony that a decent full back should be able to keep pretty quiet. Him having the ball in our half of the field has always been a huge liability.

Ehhh I disagree a bit. And I think in part it's hard to judge any attacking player right now. 

They all looked good when we had a good balance to the side and the midfield was clicking like against Cardiff and Bristol. But if the supply line into them is inconsistent and the support around them isn't great it's not easy. 

Then you've got things like against Norwich where you've asked NML to man mark their Full back who is inverting in midfield. So when we win the ball back is operating from a deeper more congested area which isn't his forte. Rather than  doing what he is actually good at in stretching play.

The other thing is inconsistency in wingers is just kind of a truism at this level. It's why I always liked the approach under McClaren where you've basically got 4 you are always rotating between and looking to change after about an hour.

Not to say NML is the best player at this level or that we can't improve down the line. But I wouldn't say he looks out of place and is pretty far down where I think the problems lay.

[brady1993]

2 hours ago, europia said:

Tend to agree, NML certainly wasn't great against Norwich. Giving him the captaincy was poor judgement from Warney. Unless NML improves he actually won't be getting many starts. 

I think he was completely shackled against Norwich by our own tactical choices.

Edited October 2 by brady1993

[rynny]

8 hours ago, rammieib said:

If you give a team 65% possession, keeping a clean sheet is nigh on impossible in the Championship away from home.

Making mistakes and giving away soft goals is more of an issue.

Blackburn had 47%, Sunderland 51% and we gave away soft goals.

I had a look to see if anyone had kept a clean sheet this season away from home with the home side having 65+% and the first game I looked at, Cardiff vs Sunderland (first game of the season), has Cardiff with 65% and Sunderland won 2-0. In fact it has happened quite a lot, almost half the time a home side has failed to score they have had 65+% possession. 

[RoyMac5]

2 hours ago, rynny said:

Making mistakes and giving away soft goals is more of an issue.

Blackburn had 47%, Sunderland 51% and we gave away soft goals.

I had a look to see if anyone had kept a clean sheet this season away from home with the home side having 65+% and the first game I looked at, Cardiff vs Sunderland (first game of the season), has Cardiff with 65% and Sunderland won 2-0. In fact it has happened quite a lot, almost half the time a home side has failed to score they have had 65+% possession. 

Don't the possession stats change though? As it seemed against Sunderland that in the 1st half we were content to try and hit them on the break and in the 2nd half after they'd scored it seemed that they were okay allowing us possession and they sat back?

[Crewton]

When will people learn that fixating on possession stats in the EFL is pointless. It's how effective you are when in possession and when out of possession that matters.

[brady1993]

2 hours ago, rynny said:

Making mistakes and giving away soft goals is more of an issue.

Blackburn had 47%, Sunderland 51% and we gave away soft goals.

I had a look to see if anyone had kept a clean sheet this season away from home with the home side having 65+% and the first game I looked at, Cardiff vs Sunderland (first game of the season), has Cardiff with 65% and Sunderland won 2-0. In fact it has happened quite a lot, almost half the time a home side has failed to score they have had 65+% possession. 

I think with a home's team possession and their failure to score it's a bit self-fulfilling. Because they've not scored a team who's coming with a somewhat defensive mindset doesn't have to come out and play and are more likely to try to settle for a draw as the game goes on. Whereas if a home team scores early they probably will see a bit less of the ball as the opposition has to try to keep it for a bit at least.

 

I do think though it's all a bit connected. There is truth to that the less of the ball you have the more defending you have to do, the more opportunities you will have to make mistakes and the more likely you are to tire faster. But I think the possession stat is more a symptom of the bigger issue of how easily we give up the ball which i think is the problem underlying a lot of problems we have. 

[MadAmster]

11 hours ago, rammieib said:

Thing is, especially away from home - giving them a game isn’t much use if we keep coming home with nil points.

If you give a team 65% possession, keeping a clean sheet is nigh on impossible in the Championship away from home.

Sunderland had 51% to out 49%. We had more shots and more shots on target.

[rammieib]

21 hours ago, MadAmster said:

Sunderland had 51% to out 49%. We had more shots and more shots on target.

But as many have said, we never looked like we were going to get anything from the game.

How do we ensure that our away record this season doesn’t finish up with around 15-20 losses? It scares me that it might. For context I believe our home record will save us.

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, rammieib said:

But as many have said, we never looked like we were going to get anything from the game.

How do we ensure that our away record this season doesn’t finish up with around 15-20 losses? It scares me that it might. For context I believe our home record will save us.

I didn't watch the game live, I only saw the highlights, so I respect the opinions of those who were there or who watched the whole game, but I saw us create enough chances, and build enough pressure in the last quarter, to suggest that we were close to scoring on 3 or 4 occasions. Sunderland had some good fortune with shots hitting defenders and goalmouth scrambled, but we do have to do something about our tendency to go flat between the lightning start and grandstand finish.

[rammieib]

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

I didn't watch the game live, I only saw the highlights, so I respect the opinions of those who were there or who watched the whole game, but I saw us create enough chances, and build enough pressure in the last quarter, to suggest that we were close to scoring on 3 or 4 occasions. Sunderland had some good fortune with shots hitting defenders and goalmouth scrambled, but we do have to do something about our tendency to go flat between the lightning start and grandstand finish.

I think that when a team leads 2-0, the opposing team is likely to be the one attacking.

The context for me is more what we try and do when it’s 0-0.

We have conceded 4, 2, 1 and 2 away in the league. I don’t believe we will keep clean sheets and thus scoring is essential.

Lets hope the ‘easier’ teams coming up changes our fortunes but they will all be looking at us and thinking ‘easy game’.

 

[MadAmster]

2 hours ago, rammieib said:

But as many have said, we never looked like we were going to get anything from the game.

How do we ensure that our away record this season doesn’t finish up with around 15-20 losses? It scares me that it might. For context I believe our home record will save us.

The 4 we've played thus far away from home are all in the current top 8. On current form, 4 of the best teams in the Division. We've not been hammered by any of them. There's a lot of teams we'll get something from and our home form is good. Nobody expected promotion this season, many expected bottom 8. I think we'll finish in midtable obscurity. Build from there to top half next season and onwards.