Match Day Thread Accrington Stanley v Sunderland - Wednesday 17th March - KO 19:00

Kenwyn Jones had great qualities, as a striker, but he would've hesitated too long ...

.... he had exactly the same chance, in the first 10 minutes at Anfield and ended up rolling it to the keeper.

 

He's quite unique in that he's got incredibly high levels of self confidence without being arrogant or egotistical with it.

You can tell he's willing to learn and hear perspectives rather than be a "my way or the highway" type manager. He'll change things based on those learnings but with 100% confidence in them.

Normally managers are either rigid and stubborn in their confidence, or change things around and bring an element of doubt to what they're doing. He seems to be willing to make whatever changes he thinks are right and stand by them 100%. I expect when he gets things wrong he won't look to blame anyone but himself either.

A proper thinker but one with conviction. Love it.

 

I know exactly what you mean about that season ... I hope you are right

 

Agree with that Smug, but did you see the goal from the reverse angle (the one with O'Nien kneeling down and praying)? Wyke split their centre backs with his intelligent run, you can actually see his marker trying to hand him over to the right back and that created the gap for McGeady to slot the ball through.

 

Agree completely mate.

The fact he was supposedly hand picked first choice for the new regime is very impressive.

Did they dive that deep into English football to absolutely profile the right manager for the club? Did they get a bit fortunate? I know a lot of us on here know our football but none of us were throwing his hat in the ring.

It seems the absolute forensic work these new owners have done is absolutely staggering in depth and detail, you’ve gotta love it.

 

When I first heard about KLD I'm sure some can remember I immediately put "underwhelmed". Within an hour I was excited once it had sunk in. But even then I had no idea how much he'd seem to "get it".

I knew he was a passionate football fan. And I knew he had money. But I thought he'd essentially hire somebody to do all this stuff for him.

I never in a million years thought he'd move to the north east and give up his regular skiing trips and south of france lifestyle. I never imagined he'd go to every game including Accrington away. And he's doing this during a frigging pandemic when he's not even able to pop home in his chopper for a few days.

His passion and his desire to get right stuck in to every detail of the club - is phenomenal. And it has to be rubbing off on the players.

Let's hope it continues and his passion doesn't waver when things get tough in a year or two. Got zero reason to think it won't. I'm massively all in on the KLD train and everything he has already done for the club - especially on the footballing side. And this is before he's even had a proper transfer window.

 

Gooch can cross the ball without going past his marker, its a big attribute in tight games the first goal was an example, Diamond needs to develop this part of his armoury, having said that it was a toss up on who should make way and in these circumstances LJ always goes for experience, and it seems to work.

 

You know what I loved, after game at the weekend Max went over gave him a hug and handshake and then they had a short bit craic, both looking totally relaxed. He’s that involved. The lads know him, they are alongside him.

I keep repeating this folk will think I fancy the lad, but Max epitomises the change around the club. He’s stepped up, he’s been utterly magnificent and he’s proper lead the lads every step. Fast becoming a real favourite of mine for his sheer determination to be better and to be a role model.

The owners have got the entire club buying into the future, couple mo than ago some of us questioned if they even wanted to succeed and risk being moved on to smaller clubs.

Night and day doesn’t even start to tell it.

 

And that starts at the very top with KLD and goes all the way down. We've never had that before (as far as I can recall), proper football obsessives running the entire show.

 

Just so long as he never teaches English.

 

The position that Gooch picked up the ball from the pass, that's not the kind of position you'd expect a player like Wyke or Kenwynne to be scoring from. That type of chance is made for a more mobile player with a lower centre of gravity like, as you say, Gooch.

 

My only visit to hear “the anfield roar” or the anfiekd murmur!!! So looked forward to going to Anfield to visit an iconic stadium and hear this noise everyone went on about it. Completely underwhelmed!!! Only one set of fans made a noise and it was us

 

Cant remember Wyke scoring from any sort of distance tbh, he is the fox in the box personified, nothing wrong with playing percentage football on the sort of pitches and packed defences we sometimes come up against, especially if you have Wyke and Stewart in their. We have struggled with arial bombardments ever since we dropped into this league, we are now equipped to deal with them, and this is without Bailey Wright, and thankfully Flanagan.

 

I find it difficult to believe that you went to Anfield expecting to hear the noise from their fans when our fans were there . . . . that simply isn't very likely at all

 

Let’s not forget the fact that if you’re at the back you can’t see **** either.

 

Official Highlights:
https://safc.com/news/team-news/2021/march/accrington/highlights-vs-accrington

 

I have wondered if Chris Coleman would have been good, if Short had not decided to close his wallet, as he was pizzed off at being taken for a ride. If Coleman could have had the funds for a loan keeper and striker we may have stayed in the championship. The daft thing was Short then wrote off a debt of £120m when he passed the club onto Donald for a pittance.

 

When we appointed Coleman I was all for it, but the reality was he was incredibly limited and didn’t have any idea how to change things around.

We weren’t far off staying up so maybe a keeper and a replacement for Grabban could have kept us up, but I think it would have been papering cracks.

He’s done nothing since, great job for Wales but when you break it down that improvement started before him and continued after.

Top fella Coleman mind, but I don’t think he was ever the one.

 

Spot on about Power - and yes that shot of him chatting with KLD was awesome.

Power strikes me as somebody who just felt lost here, like it was pointless. That was the atmosphere Donald created. Nobody wanted to be in league one but nobody wanted to be at Sunderland full stop.

Now KLD, Speakman and LJ have created an atmosphere where people want to be there and want to get out of the league. It's like they have a purpose. And Power seems the type to really buy-in to purpose and has been an outstanding captain recently.

 

Apparently they cashed out but still guaranteed £300k.