Wiggum's Whinge

Looking back at this performance you have to be disappointed with only taking a point against a very poor, boring Palace side. The good thing, although it is another game into the season, we have slightly caught up the leading teams with Birmingham losing against Southend. It was a game that should have been killed off in the opening 25 minutes but yet again the final ball or effort on target was not created tonight.

I don't normally make it into the ground for kick-off (what with my drinking habits before-hand) but on this occasion after watching a band in The Music Rooms I entered the Stadium with five minutes to spare and could not believe how empty the stands were as it approached kick-off. The requests from Sir Niall and the signings from Keano have simply not brought back the stay away fans and it is very sad to see in such an important part of the season, the more fans that show up the more we can lift the team into the playoffs and back to where we belong!

Stokes passed a late fitness test and partnered the very impressive Connolly up front, also Liam Miller returned after his suspension that he picked up in the cup defeat to Preston. Stern John who was spotted at half time with a good old English Bovril was not involved in the set up, and maybe it was a wrong decision after a stalemate at the SoL.

Sunderland started very brightly with some good passes out of defence from the Nos and some nice touches from Stokes to involve other players but the end product was poor all night. All the pressure that we managed to create was thwarted by weak efforts and never troubled Kiraly all game. The best chance of the half and the entire game fell to Palace as Green hit the ball into the ground only for Ward to tip the ball to safety. Apart from this early scare that was all the Sunderland new centre backs had to deal with in a fairly comfortable evening for Evans and Nosworthy.

Sunderland's best chance fell to Dwight Yorke after a good cross from Hysen was palmed out by Kiraly only for Dwight to hit the rebound over the bar. Yorke had one of his most accomplished performances tonight by reading the game very well and winning most of his tackles, encouraging to see him get stuck in as many fans have argued his heart is not in it. The curse of the penalty claim struck as the half time whistle arrived with a blatant handball being ignored by the referee, and more surprisingly the assistant who was in a perfect position to award it (will it ever come?)

Palace started the second half more brightly with some nice passing in the centre of the park and Sunderland resorted to the long ball approach. I thought this had left the club along with the many departures in Keane's regime, it simply was not working as the strikers had no service, a complete contrast to Sheff Wed not so long ago.

Keane tried to change the game by making a treble substitution over a 15 minute period with Wallace, Leadbitter and Murphy coming on but not creating anything new from what we watched beforehand. The final effort which some may argue was our best came from a Leadbitter drive on the edge of the box, but with no placement and straight down the keepers throat it proved to be another weak attempt.

So the massive 200 travelling cockneys will travel back to their shandy very happy after taking 4 points from us this season but as Keane said in his post match interview: "It's a clean sheet" so we must remain positive as we take on Coventry on Saturday and once and for all get into the bloody play-offs!

MOM - Dwight Yorke - tried his best to win every ball, kept possession and read the game excellently.

CLANCEY_WIGGUM
A.K.A Gary Johnson

Rockin's rant

Firstly I’d like to start by sharing my disgust at a certain section of the home ‘support’ who decided to boo the players off the field. This was an embarrassment to the rest of the supporters who’d contributed well to the atmosphere. I’m not sure what those imbeciles where hoping to gain from booing the team from the field but whatever it was it will certainly not have a positive effect on the players. Those people shouldn’t bother turning up to the game if they’re going to come out with foolish statements, if it means even thinner crowds then so be it. Prior to the booing a few idiots in the North Stand decided to throw a second ball on to the pitch as the Palace ‘keeper was about to take his goal kick, as with the booing this doesn’t help the team in anyway and only wastes our own time.

It Also was nice to see a so called ‘big club’ bring a whopping 200 fans at best.

Anthony Stokes came back into the team from injury to replace Stephen Elliott who was injured. The first half started quite brightly from the lads though it was the same problem as we’ve had a few times this season that we have large amounts of possession and can’t seem to do much with it. Palace were difficult to break down and they could have opened the scoring had Darren Ward not pulled off a fantastic reflex save. Jonny Evans and Nyron Nosworthy were again rocks in the centre of defence and won everything in the air against Shefki Kuqi. Nosworthy appears to be flourishing in his new centre half role and to the surprise of many in the stadium he pinged a fantastic 30 yard ball to the feet of Toby Hysen. A rather drab first half was lit up by a fantastic piece of skill from David Connolly who superbly brought the ball down and turned his man in one top class move. Unfortunately the team didn’t manage to create many chances despite looking lively.

The second half was much the same as the first. We had a large amount of possession but we simply couldn’t break Palace down who were very well organised. Both Connolly and Stokes looked lively up front though they didn’t see enough of the ball to make anything count. Neither ‘keeper had to make a save in the second half, though we did have a few more shots than the first they were mostly down the goalkeeper’s throat or blazed over the bar. Despite having over a week off we looked a little tired in the latter stages of the second half compared to Palace who’d played in the FA Cup on Saturday. A drab affair but a much needed point picked up.

Full time: 0-0

MOTM – David Connolly who continually runs his socks off for the team and is playing very well at the moment and long may it continue.