RTG Sunderland Message Boards


As he'll no doubt be frantically hitting F5 on his keyboard this evening to see what the wise old SMB has to say, I'd just like to place my own thanks and appreciation to the good job Tony Mowbray did here. As I and others have said, he's made friends on Wearside and will always be welcomed back.

That said, it's time to focus on the present (and very shortly, the future). Today was a thoroughly encouraging post-manager performance where we outplayed a decent, in-form side and deserved to win by a good two or three goals.

I'll try and focus on what I felt were the main differences between what we've seen recently and today. They were mostly small changes, but some of them you could argue had a significance on the result.

1. We seemed to play a lot more balls and make a lot more runs into the channels in the space behind the centre back and full back. This might have been Aouchiche just settling into the team, or it might have been a deliberate plan to play a bit quicker and a bit more direct at the right times. I thought it helped us get up the pitch and gave us some joy with Aouchiche, Roberts and Huggins all benefiting at times. It was more like the football we saw last season with Amad, Roberts and Gooch/Hume overlapping.

2. Following on from that, our full backs played as more orthodox wing backs when we had the ball, with overlapping runs and less inverting. Hume did invert occasionally, but it was less often and it came more in the form of marauding runs whilst Clarke hugged the line than a deliberate ploy to sit in central midfield. This seemed to give us more balance and allowed Roberts more bodies around him and have him more of an influence on the game.

3. Again alluded to above, but we did go more direct at times. This might not be a great change and might have been more down to the game situation, but the second goal was a good example of just clearing our lines and putting pressure on the defender trying to deal with the long ball. Also, Ballard's goal. Am I right in thinking that he doesn't often make near post runs from set pieces?

4. Substitutions. They were perhaps a little bit more thought out than we've seen recently. Personally I didn't want to take Aouchiche off but Pritchard for the last half hour or so is always welcome. I'm glad we brought on a striker too as we were crying out for someone to be the focal point in the latter stages.

Another area in which we excelled at times was the press. West Brom wanted to play out and showed signs of being able to, however we forced them into mistakes at times, no more so than when Jobe hunted down the keeper and ended up having a goal wrongly dismissed.

Overall I think the staff need credit for both sticking to the principles that Mowbray instilled, but also simplifying things by telling our full backs to play in a more orthodox way, and not be afraid to clear our lines if we have to. There were subtle changes without reinventing the wheel. Don't get me wrong, we were still too passive at times and some of our decisions to pass it out from the back were poor, but that would be nit picking on what in general was a very good performance. Though I do need to mention our shot-shy approach again, which was evident at times. So many opportunities we could have got a shot away but elected for another pass and saw the move break down.

Patterson - I don't remember him having too many shots to save. Distribution poor at times (both long and short) and I feel he sometimes slows things down too much, but generally fine. 6

Huggins - solid and dependable all game, with some good forays forward and helped get the best out of Roberts at times. 7

Ballard - immense at the back as he's a real leader and warrior, plus the opening goal which capped a dominant performance. 9

O'Nien - I didn't notice him too much but seemed steady enough throughout. 7

Hume - terrific. Never shirks a challenge (some of our other players could take note) and put in some belters today to really lift the mood at times. 8

Neil - a great run and finish for the winner. Otherwise a little bit in and out and didn't seem to have his shooting boots on until that moment. 7

Ekwah - a theme is developing with Ekwah in that he's good on the ball and when we're going forward, but not so good at the defensive side. For a strapping lad he doesn't really throw his weight into a challenge, and he seems a bit too easy to play around at times. He was still better than we've seen recently though. 7

Roberts - much more lively and involved as mentioned earlier. He seemed happier with players around him and he caused problems. Should have shot before going down softly looking for a penalty. 8

Aouchiche - I was really impressed with him. He constantly got into dangerous positions with his clever movement, linked up well with others and always seemed to make something happen. If he settles and gets a regular run I think we've got a good player on our hands. 8

Clarke - a constant menace with his driving runs and much more like it from him. Like the other two above, always looked like he was going to create an opening. 8

Bellingham - put himself about and did a job against two man mountains. Scored a perfectly good goal. 7

Subs - special mention to Pritchard as his two assistant arguably won us the game. Mayenda looks a handful.

Ref - pretty poor overall. I thought he was largely fine first half apart from missing a couple of bookings, and obviously it was the linsesman who made the major cock up. Second half I actually felt like he started giving quite a lot to us, but didn't really seem in control and you weren't quite sure what he was going to do. The booking for their right back on Pritchard, for example. I don't think he really knew what to give in that incident.

West Brom - surprisingly poor for me. That might be a compliment to us for nullifying them, but other than their winger on loan from Brighton, they really didn't offer much.

Back
Top