TRon

This is the problem when you lose good players, there's less areas of the pitch for the shite ones to hide in.

Nuno switching things around a bit after watching our defeats from his interview.

Says a lot that I am quite confident he will put in a decent showing.

Please show up today. We don't need goals or a MoM performance, just some composure and determination to get a grip on that midfield battle.

Fair enough. Hopefully that means it's just a twinge which means he'll be ok by Wednesday, although I would not be taking any risk at all playing him today, even off the bench.

He's better than Dubravka basically.

We just need to neutralise their threat from Elanga and MGW. It's not like they have some super big secret where their success comes from.

Maybe someone can explain the logic because I don't get it either.

Exactly. They aren't a dominating team, they will let us have possession. What we do with it is going to decide the match.

If he was bullshitting he'd be starting. The bullshit was coming from those who were calling it bullshit.

Probably not fit enough to be on the bench either then.

I'm contemplating what the midfield will look like without Tonali anyway. Would be odd if it was just made up out of thin air. Tonali has never even looked like he's had any injury problems.

Short term gain for long term pain.

Results have gone our way, it's a massive opportunity to put ourselves back in the driving seat for CL football.

Their style also suits us tbh. We struggle more against teams who use our tactics and press our players into making mistakes when we are trying to pass out. If they sit back at least we should be able to play in their half. Then it's up to us to get the right players in covering areas in case we lose the ball.

Really itching for this to come round. Need to get that car crash of a performance against City out of the system.

Aye it's desperate stuff in reality, but when life gives you lemons make lemonade instead of trying to eat lemons and end up being sourfaced cunts basically.

It's not the worst idea tbh. One way of getting the younger generation to grow up Sunderland supporters. Plus a quid is better than fuck all.

But all their local support has probably thrown their lot in with Liverpool now apart from the diehards. 40 years of domination by one club will do that to a fanbase. That's why they've gone with a smaller stadium, they know it as well.

I think we've lost 3 out of our last 4 in the league so it's not that dramatic. Agree that Forest is a good game to get us back on track though.

I don't think it's a motivation issue, I just think some teams we come up against have the style and a manager clever enough to hurt us if we don't get it right. Playing the high press leaves less margin for error, we just have to make sure we don't take our eye off the ball on Sunday, and we should be ok. You could say we should never take our eye off the ball, but when you are playing the same players week in week out, there is always more chance some of them will go off the boil.

Let's be honest, we all loved reading that Newcastle would be a good option for Mbuemo because we don't have a superstar RW option.

You forgot Ruddy.

Pope is a decent keeper like, might not be elite level, but most Premier clubs would be glad to have him. While I'm sure we'd like a top class keeper who can play the ball out better, I just don't think we'll spend the money it will take. We'll be prioritising other positions. Maybe if we can't land the RW or CB we might use it to buy a keeper instead.

He was the one pushing to go there from the reports a month ago.