Andy

In fairness earlier in the season he was very poor, constantly getting bullied by every defender in the league and looked sluggish on the ball. While some of the criticism was over the top and the booing was unacceptable, it wasn't all completely unjustified. He's improved massively of late in almost every aspect of his game, both technically and physically, and it's clear the criticism has given him a kick up the arse and done him good. I’d say Almiron enabling him more time and space responsible than the slackjawed criticism from the crowd myself. 99% so. Aye, Almiron has helped massively but there's been a huge upturn in his own effort like; just as blind as the fans criticising him if you can't see that... The lad was falling over at every mild breath of wind back in November and nothing was coming off for him, it's very obvious that he's worked on his upper body strength and developed himself technically in situations where he's surrounded by defenders, he's improved his whole game which is something he needs credit for - it's certainly not exclusively the introduction of almiron and rondon that has improved his game.

In fairness earlier in the season he was very poor, constantly getting bullied by every defender in the league and looked sluggish on the ball. While some of the criticism was over the top and the booing was unacceptable, it wasn't all completely unjustified. He's improved massively of late in almost every aspect of his game, both technically and physically, and it's clear the criticism has given him a kick up the arse and done him good.

He was decent in that first season back up like, it's equally as common for people to pretend he was exclusively crap as it is for people to pretend he was brilliant. He was somewhere in between but obviously a strong character in the dressing room alongside Nolan and that was important in galvanising us during that era.

Way the commentators are going on you'd think the mancs were 3 goals up and Barca hadn't had a kick

Class categorically the most Sunderland thing ever, the way they've capped their massively embarrassing reaction to reaching such a pointless cup final by then actually losing it.

We're absolutely hopeless at defending corners like, incredibly frail for a team that is built around a good defense.

We could have been 2-0 down with the red card though. Or not, either way him being sent off gives us a much better chance. Not just to score the pen (as he's saved more than half his pens this season) but because we'd be up against 10 men. Suits neesy to be a know all miserable bastard. Hahahaha, unlike you. Pot calling kettle Both of you simmer down for fucks sake, stop letting the frustration of watching this shite get the better of you.

Ritchie's shite but I'm not sure why people are complaining about him taking it like, proper hindsight merchants. He's pretty much always scored from the spot for us.

Almiron's pace in behind offers a whole new dimension to our play like, really looks like the missing piece of the puzzle so far. 5th best defensive record in the league and finally some attacking fret to add to it, if only we'd signed him in the summer...

Getting better with each match and is definitely a Premier League midfielder from what I've seen of him so far. Seems to have a decent engine and is very tidy in possession, while also having the ability to turn the play faster than Diame and Ki generally do. Has to retain his place in the team even when the others are fit, for me.

Another Rafa inspired defeat. You'd think after 13 years you'd be bored of this gig

What do you expect man? If we take the game to spurs away from home with this team we lose by 3 or 4, we aren't good enough to do that. On another day Rondon's header and Perez's shot go in and it's a tactical masterclass

Ritchie absolutely passed the buck with that corner, should've told atsu to fuck off and took responsibility for the delivery. Disgraceful.

Not the best defending, but howay man, that's a great strike.

Aye he was lazy as fuck but it wasn't just Shelvey's fault for the goal like. Cross came in too easily, centre halves marking no one, all-round bad defending tbh.

Which is why we got relegated. Jannmaat was decent early on but when things got really difficult later that season his attacking outlet consisted of blindly floating balls into the box. Aye but surely the ones who were no outlet at all should be more hated? Blindly floating balls into the box never happened like. Janmaat was defending shite near the end but was still decent going forward They both had hearts smaller than peas man.

Not quite a red for me, but it's one of those clichéd "orange" cards tbh. Most refs would show yellow, the odd spanner would show red due to the aggression.

He's not the only one to blame, but he certainly has to take some of the blame for such staggering laziness having just came on the pitch. The attack should've been stopped earlier but if Kenedy gets back it probably isn't a goal.

Absolutely no way you can blame your second striker for losing the ball in the attacking third for a goal like that. Aye maybe he should've took it to the corner, but our midfield and defence were absolutely catastrophic in how they dealt with the counter attack, there's absolutely no way their player should've ran as far as he did unchallenged, it was absolutely atrocious. Kenedy's tracking back was lazy as fuck too, something I haven't seen mentioned - for a player that had just came on the pitch the lack of effort he made to get back to help Ritchie when we were clearly stretched was appalling.

It's also how you end up in a position where £10m is spent on someone like Murphy and rather than it being viewed as a pittance for a young, British player, it's viewed as a waste of a lot of money and we're in a position where some of our fans are thinking like Ashley, completely divorced from the reality of modern day football spending. If he ever played Murphy I would feel differently. This was someone he wanted. Who was our most expensive signing that summer. This isn’t about agreeing with Mike Ashley. Don’t be so fucking stupid. This is about taking the rose tinted glasses off for a moment and actually seeing that Rafa has done a decent job but not amazing, certainly not in the transfer market with what he’s had to spend. The state of the team this year is on him. The same bunch played far better last year. One of the most clueless series of posts I've ever seen on here, fair play.

A player like this is far more effective in Rafa's system than immobile players like Mitrovic, Rondon and Joselu. He offers similar movement and link-up play to Gayle, whose presence improved our performances last season even if he wasn't scoring.

7. Worst attacking team I've seen in my lifetime I think, can't see organisation keeping us up again.

Columbia have been disgraceful like, but having said that we haven't done nearly enough going forward in open play like.

Absolutely hate the concept of losing being the better option in a world cup game like. You're going to need to play the best teams at some point anyway, getting into a losing mentality and trying to avoid tough games doesn't seem right at all.

While he had a couple of games where he looked like he could be a real player, he had more games where he didn't really offer much at all, and it seems like his heart isn't particularly in it. Not fussed really