Match Day Thread Sunderland v Blackpool – Tuesday 27th April - KO 19:00

Sunderland welcome Blackpool to the Stadium of Light in the SkyBet League One.

Last time out Sunderland drew with Accrington and Blackpool lost to Shrewsbury.
Sunderland remain in third place but are 9 points behind Peterborough with three games left to play. The Black Cats failed to capitalise on a great start against Accrington as Hull City confirmed their return to the Championship at the first attempt.
Aiden McGeady returned to the side at the weekend and provided his 15th assist of the season, helping Charlie Wyke to reach 30 goals, the first Sunderland striker to reach that landmark since Super Kevin Phillips.
Blackpool have lost their last two games after a 15 game unbeaten run, and are in 6th place with 68 points. Elliot Embleton is not available for selection against his parent club. Ethan Robson replaced Embleton against Shrewsbury and could start against his former club.
Lee Johnson:
"We have to secure a place in the play-offs, that's the first thing - and that's not done yet, then we have to almost press the reset button because one thing that we haven't spoken about a lot is how many games the boys have played, repeating it every three days.”
"We have got a squad big enough, in every position apart from centre-half, to cope with that.""It was a difficult one for us to take after a decent performance in midweek against Hull and then a really sterling attacking first-half today.”
"You have to give credit to Accrington, but it's one that we also have to study. We need to toughen up in certain situations. We didn't put them to the sword, with all the chances that we had.”
"I remember Aiden O'Brien coming inside and having a chance where he could either lay the ball off or shoot, and there were a few balls that flashed across the six-yard box without us getting on the end of them.”
"We had lovely momentum in our attacking play, there was nothing wrong with that. Even the third goal, Jack Diamond came on and showed his youthful exuberance and his quality at that moment (providing the assist for Power).”
Neil Critchley:
“I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but we got into some very good areas, remained patient and passed the ball well, but the final bits let us down.”
“I would say that we created better chances than we did against Rochdale on Tuesday night, especially after half-time.”
“You need to take one of those chances and change the game, to force a team that has come to frustrate and maybe get a point or pick up three from a set-piece or a breakaway. Unfortunately that’s what has cost us.”
“It’s a really poor goal, just as it was against Rochdale on Tuesday night. We started the second-half well, had a couple of chances and didn’t take them. We’re in their half in a really good attacking position, we turn the ball over too cheaply and we then end up defending a corner and we’ve not defended it well enough.”
“That was probably the only time that they got out of their own half in the second-half, so to lose in that manner is even more frustrating than the whole game.”

Match Appointments:
Referee: WILL FINNIE
Assistant Referees: Conor Brown and Alan Clayton
Fourth Official: Richard Wigglesworth

Team Line ups
Sunderland: Burge; O’Nien, Younger, Wright, Hume; Power, Winchester, Neil; Gooch, McGeady, Wyke.

Subs: Matthews, Almond, Jones, O’Brien, Leadbitter, Maguire, Stewart
Injured: Xhemajli, Willis, Flanagan, McLaughlin, Vokins, Sanderson

Blackpool: (4-3-3) Maxwell, Gabriel, Ballard, Thorniley, Garbutt, Dougall, Ward, Robson, Kaikai, Simms, Yates
Subs: Moore, Turton, Husband, Ekpiteta, Mitchell, Holmes
Injured: Stewart, Anderson Madine, Virtue, Hamilton.

Betting Odds:
Sunderland 13/8 Blackpool 17/10 Draw 2/1

Run-In:

My two pence:
We really should have beaten Accrington after a great first half, playing some good football, creating chances and looking like we were in complete control.
Unfortunately the game lasts 90 minutes and we somehow managed to throw away the lead not once but twice.
So all we have to do is win our next three games and hope that Posh don’t pick up any points.
Failing that, just get another win to qualify for the playoffs.
I’m going for a 4-4 draw just for the hell of it.

Live stream £10
https://www.safc.com/news/team-news/live-video

Ha’way the Lads

 

Another great thread and a decent looking defence. As usual not attempting a prediction just hoping for a win,

 

Meh and meh. We'll probably win but it means now now Streaky Lee has seen off our promotion chances

1-1 Early Wyke goal, 2nd half equaliser, lots of huff and puff

Johnson will name same back 4 and no defenders on the bench

Younger and Almond kicking their heels in the u23s

rinse and repeat

 

1-1. Mcgeady to get a goal on the 8th minute, with them to equalise in 68th minute due to a Lee Burge mistake.

 

4-3 ****ing 3. And stick with it. And put Younger in the team ffs.

 

I’m afraid to say I’ll think we will lose this one, and put our play off place into jeopardy!!

1-3

Bart

 

Johnson to extol the virtues of 433 again and talk about how Maguire is central to the team

Then play 442 with Maguire not even in the squad


#Clown

 

Since I came over from RTG.
And I like that forum and a lot of the posters, (need to check it out again soon)
Your match day threads are topper mate,

I'm just hoping we win every fooking game now until the end of the season including the extra last three.
I'm probably wrong but thought we'd go up for a while.
Do we deserve it ?
If we finish 3rd we should, but by fook we will if we win the play offs.
We certainly deserve our time now.

 

HA'WWWWAY THE LADS.

MACKEMS ATTACKEM.

LETS FOOKIN SMASH EM

AND ALL THAT STAND IN OUR WAY.

 

I'm going for another 2-0 win - but **** knows what the second half score will be this time!

 

easy peasy gone for the win again, i'm scared to think what other crap performance will do to my moral , so best not to think about it and pray for the win.

 

another great thread RTB lets hope this is your lucky one

 

I agree with the defence, it needs to change as it’s just not working at the moment, that was embarrassing on Saturday. I’m not a fan of Power at all but I’m even less of a fan of Scowen so also agree with the midfield. We need to sign 2 or 3 quality central midfielders in the summer regardless of which division we are in. A win would be great given we could face Blackpool in the play offs. Not holding my breath though, these cowards have shown their true colours over the past few weeks.

 

Great thread as per usual RTB.

**** it, 6-0 win to the lads

 

RTB

A win would be good

I reckon we could score a couple but can we defend our goal?

LJ needs to try something defensively... go to 3 CBs Bailey Wright 09 and Younger with Gooch and Hume WBs?

With Wyke, Mcgeady Power, Scowen plus one of Jones/O Brien/Diamond

 

Class at work this morning, getting the piss ripped out of me from all the Peterborough fans ffs. FML.

 

Great thread RTB but who knows which Sunderland are going to turn up tomorrow night, is having a good 90 minutes too much to ask for as I'm sick of them only giving it a go for half a game. No prediction from me as I haven't got a clue.

 

I think we'll lose 7-0, we'll be relegated on a technicality (Page 217, Paragraph 14, Sub-clause 12, sub-sub clause 27b states that no club shall have an owner who's name rhymes with Cyril), the stadium will fall down, and Lee Johnson will get to Number 1 in the charts by reciting a PhD thesis on sheet theory over an acid house backing track.

 

I think an entire squad revamp is required

Not many from this year's squad that I'd be interested in keeping

 

I think we'll win this one, all set for playoffs now, we have as much chance as whoever else is there. If we achieve promotion great, if not, we are not ran by clowns now, so in my eyes the future is positive. The whole covid era has been bizarre to say the least, real progress forward will be more evident when we can return in numbers. Not the end of the world if we don't make it, it's just the start of a brand new era. Pretty sure it will be an exciting ride.