Benwell Lad

Well what a week that was for north east football ! Both our clubs played their full part in exciting matches with the drama of unlikely two goal deficits being overturned late in the game and last gasp winners sending fans into raptures. Both teams should be commended for the excitement they have provided

If we finish in a promotion place can we refuse to accept it and just have another season of fun in this league ?

Can't see Rafa going with two up front, it's just not what he does. Mind he is very much into "bespoke" teams so if it fits the opposition who knows........?

The fat pitch invader sliding on his knees on the halfway line and making almost zero attempt to get away from the stewards as he was that elated was canny as well. Forgot about that in amongst everything else. What a bloody night!

Exactly. He's a left back who generally does what a left back needs to do quite well.

Completely forgot about that Darlow incident. I thought he spilled the shot at the end too and a Norwich player was going to nick the ball and make it 4-4 A foot more from his body and the centre forward probably puts that in. He just managed to grasp it second time.

Clark's amazing tackle is easy to forget amongst all the goals and chances but also what about Darlow rushing out to catch the ball and over running the line but somehow putting the ball behind his head to keep it in the box. An amazing piece of athleticism - not to be attempted by anyone with a beer belly

If you read through their match thread, they were making fun of us for having "52,000 screaming Geordies with 500,000 locked out", not sure how that is supposed to be an insult when we pull in 48k for a midweek championship game ! Half the crowd left according to them when Norwich's third goal went in, the source for this information was the Sky Sports news guy they had there. Since someone posted the whole coverage on sky on youtube I saw what he actually said was this after we scored our 2nd "If there were any home fans leaving, they will have returned to their seats because Newcastle are right back in this". Of course they say all this from their ivory towers where they fill their ground every week and no one ever leaves until the last whistle is blown. The exodus from the Everton game was just embarrassing to watch on TV. There were more Newcastle fans still present in SJP when our 96th minute winner went in last night than there will have been Sunderland fans in the SoS at the beginning of any game this season.

Just send 14 players out on the park, the standard of refereeing in this league they probably wouldn't notice,

9.42PM 29th September 2016 - the moment football ceased to exist on Wearside :-)

Don't judge the book by the cover in this league. The name of the club may be Rotherham, Brentford or Burton Albion but no team is going to roll over for us.

Norwich time wasting and the amount of stoppages for kicks off's between players and the ref failing to control said incidents. there was that head injury too. not sure which of our players it was. down by the gallowgate/milburn corner. that was 3 minutes in itself. Also 5 goals and several substitutions. And the Mitro & Lascelles scuffles. Naar, ref was a mag marra, kept on playing until they won. FTM.

Turned the match. Amazing tackle, he was clear second best to get to it and it would have almost certainly been a Norwich goal.

:lol:

It hasn't stopped us being the league's highest scorers, with 21 goals in 10 games, so far

Referee was waiting to give it once Gouff got into that position, almost like he'd decided before the contact happened. Bit like some of our bookings naivety made the decision easy for the referee to make.

A truly incredible match which will be remembered for a very long time by those who were there. Can't agree with anyone saying it was a bad performance or the late goals papered over cracks, yes it was a strange game and there is something not quite happening at times which is difficult to put your finger on, but overall we dominated, created a load of chances and looked in good shape as we have in most games so far. We fully deserved to win over 90 odd minutes but very nearly didn't. This league looks stronger than it was last time we were down from what I've seen. As the PL has grown stronger and richer something has filtered down, there are better players and teams look better organised than last time. The way that promoted teams have coped with the PL over the last 5 years or so probably bears this out. We are the best team in this league.

In the context of this league we have had a difficult first 10 games and we're doing ok. Tonight's game is however quite pivotal to how we fare. Win, we kick on and go top within a few games. Lose or draw,not the end of the world. We're then involved in a scrap with a lot of other teams to be top six come December. Generally we've dominated games and looked better than the opposition and that should be a sign that things will be fine especially considering our squad depth.

That really is rubbish. Sadly they keep repeating such things and eventually they start believing it. So many inaccuracies but to address a couple of points. Firstly the County Durham thing they continually bleat on about, referring to John Hall he says, He told the people next door to Tyneside, in County Durham – the traditional heartland of Sunderland support, that they could become honourable Geordies if they wanted, and join him in the creation of a sporting dynasty that would rival Ancient Greece. And some of them went. Most of North Durham (and other parts of the county too) has always been black and white. Indeed Murray himself was from the Derwent Valley/Consett both predominantly Newcastle supporting. Murray's real legacy, which was mainly due to the typical "chip on shoulder" they have about Newcastle, was his desire to have a bigger stadium than Newcastle, and while Newcastle continue to fill theirs through thick and thin, they never fill theirs even for the biggest games and are faced with the indignity of giving away tens of thousands of tickets to people with no interest in Sunderland to pad the place out. Murray would have been wiser to build a stadium that fit and would sometimes be full with people who paid to get in. And as for this bit, well there are delusions and then there are delusions....... But, for me - Bob Murray’s great achievement, which places him in a position of worthy note in Sunderland’s history is not, in fact, the building of the Stadium of Light, but instead the continuation of a professional football club in Sunderland that managed to hold on to its place towards the head of the football pyramid, at a time when others sought to destroy it in their pursuit of a futile falsity on Tyneside.

What what was a pretty decent performance for much of the game and a decent point ended up feeling as disappointing as a defeat.

Must win. Well at least not get beat.

i predicted Hull at home at the start of the season as their first win, thats in November and if i come close to being right it will be a disaster for them It's possible, just depends on how this weekend effects them. Tbh losing from 2-0 up at home is probably worse than getting a kicking and losing 4-0...even when they are in a winning position next time this match will be all they are thinking about until the final whistle. Just take one mistake, teams back in it and they'll fold. It's not so,etching I really associate with Sunderland, usually they get a goal and they'll go on to take something out of the game. I've seen some incredible dig in the trenches performances over the years but it seems they don't even have that any more. Spirit will be broken if not shattered by that loss, and spirit is all they've had for years. "Bad defending" has become an overused cliché nowadays. Every team has defensive lapses. That said, their defending yesterday (as seen on MOTD) was really, really bad. I don't think Benteke would have been given the freedom he was in a Northern League game and the other two goals were almost as bad. Considering this cash strapped club just spent a fortune tying down Kone and investing in a Chelsea reserve squad CB they really do have problems. We often laughed at O'Shea and Brown but it seems they've blown a big part of their budget on central defence and managed to go backwards in the process.

Has Strange not been on yet commenting about yesterday's game ? Probably still on RTG writing his 30th post of the day so far

Fucking hell they really are bad. Moyes looks like he's hoyed the towel in already.

That and previous comment about two points thrown away sums it up perfectly. Positives though, apart from the final 15 minutes we bossed it, did create and really should have won.