I don’t think a Sunderland home league game has been this anticipated for quite a few years. Even in the last Championship winning season, the side were winning games but there was no real excitement around the club or the team. Things, however, are changing. And it’s this chance for a new start that people seem to be latching on to. Keane, new players, 3 wins on the bounce – all are giving hope that perhaps the time of false dawns are over and this will be the real thing.
Its very early days however and there’s a long way to go and today we got a bit of a reality check. Even I got carried away and expected another comprehensive victory, but I should have known better. Life doesn’t work like that, and neither does supporting Sunderland.
The only change to the side that beat Leeds was Chris Brown coming back in for Connolly who was injured. Dwight Yorke was involved for the first time and he started on the bench. It’s a measure of the size of the squad Keane has now in the fact that 3 strikers are injured yet he can still have two up front and have Yorke on the bench. The atmosphere beforehand was good. Another 10,000 turned up today and it was all setup for another dominant performance like Wednesday night against Leeds. Leicester however had other ideas. They’re an average side with no household names at all and after a home defeat against Hull in the week you’d have thought they’d be pretty poor. They were half decent though, fought hard, closed down well, passed it around nicely at times and got the ball up to the front 2 quickly and stretched Sunderlands back four alarmingly at times.
Sunderland on the other hand were a shadow of themselves after the great performance at Leeds and never got going with any fluent football. Kavanagh, who ran the last 2 games, couldn’t get in to it. Collins and Elliott looked a little unsure in the fullback roles. Whitehead and Miller looked off the pace too. Things weren’t helped by losing Murphy early on to what seemed like a hamstring injury. It gave Yorke an earlier than expected run-out but Murphys pace and touch would be missed.
There weren’t many chances of note in the first half. A well saved Brown header and a good move that resulted in a Ross Wallace shot going wide were as good as it got. Leicester however kept getting in behind the back four on the break and only the calmness and experience of Varga and Cunningham ensured they didn’t score.
Half time and you wondered what Keane would say to them, would they turn it round like they did at Derby? Would he get stuck into them as we all imagine or is that not giving him enough credit that he might go through it calmly, point out where they are failing and encourage them to do better? It’s easy to imagine a Roy Keane smashing tables and throwing boots off the wall but I’m not sure that’s fair and I don’t think that’s how he’ll do it (unless they really reserve it).
Whatever happened however didn’t really make an impact, in fact Leicester seemed to have the more confidence as the second half started and looked more likely to score. Then after a bit of soft play at the back, Liam Miller gave the ball away, Matt Fryatt broke into the box and shot past Alnwick to put Leicester 1 up. For the next 5 minutes it was backs to the wall a little as Leicester looked for a second and we looked increasingly unsure. We weathered the storm however and gradually got more into it. Then Hysen came on for Miller who couldn’t do much right by that stage. He went over to the right and his first touch was to bring the ball inside, cut across 2 defenders until he found some space then he shot low into the bottom corner for the equalizer. It was an inspired substitution (albeit a fairly obvious one) and highlighted the benefit of having a winger on the ‘wrong side’ in that he can cut in and do other things than just get to the by-line and cross.
It seemed that another goal would come after that and the win would be ours but it never really happened and Leicester were never in danger. Some nice play from Yorke, who looks a little short of match fitness but showed some great touches nonetheless and a few high balls into Brown late on were easily dealt with and everyone had to settle for a draw.
So after a below par performance and going behind, a draw is a decent result and this is a game we would have lost 3 weeks ago. It’s still been a superb week and as long as we keep picking up points in this league we’ll be alright.
Man of the match – Stanislav Varga
Posted by Marcopaul