afar

Compare this game to the Mainz one and you can see obviously how important he is for us and how important it is that we are not relying on Diame and Colback as a midfield pairing

Nice effort Murphy.

Seriously? The Wolfsburg player is in his own bloody half, ffs, where do you expect Darlow to stand, on his line ?

Colback not made it onto the pitch yet, which is telling I hope.

That is a hell of a save from Darlow, great shot from the Wolf lad.

That was a super ball to Aarons, don't like him on the right though, doesn't seem to know what to do there.

Good move, great ball by Diame would you believe.

Atsu nearly messed that up. Good play in the build up.

He's looked better than Dummett that's all you need to know

You're boring dude.

On the evidence of pre-season, he's lost the only attribute he had which was solid defensively. It's gonna cost us goals if we don't fix that LB spot.

People hate on Mitro, but we had some much better shape with him in there and Perez behind rather than this combo. If Diame is starting for us this season we are toast.

Dummet is having a mare of a pre season

I honestly think if he can stay fit he'll be back in an England squad before the end of the season. I also think the same could be said about Gayle, if he can replicate last season's form and stay fit.

There is absolutely no way we are not replacing Murphy in the squad, we have 2 senior strikers plus a fraud, we are screwed with an injury to Gayle.

Marveaux failed a medical or something for Liverpool and we picked up the pieces, hardly beating them to him.

I'm still not ready to commit, but if we keep everyone fit and suspension free throughout the season (which of course is never going to happen) I think we are more than good enough to finish top 10. The big problem with our squad right now is the lack of quality in depth at certain positions, we've no cover for Gayle or Shelvey and those two are vital for us to have a good season. If the window closed today however barring a season long injury to one or both of those two, I think we will be fine, there is more than enough crap at the bottom and Rafa is more than capable of keeping our heads above water.

Was for Johnson, in fact it was innocent even after proven guilty.

No it's not, he's a very good player. This over the top criticism of him is boring as hell.

We probably should see how he fairs in a first team game this pre-season, he's on fire right now.

LOL and people said we should buy this fraud: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/lamine-kone-player-watch-sunderland-13404670

I missed all the second half, saw most of the first, so my comments are based solely on that. Colback really hurts us in more than one way, for a player that's supposed to be defensive, he hardly protected his back four at all, Diame alongside him is a terrible idea. That middle two really stopped us getting any kind of a foothold on the game that I saw. Dummett was downright rank in his strength area, defending ! Mitro, Murphy and De Jong had their moments but not overly effective, neither was Ritchie who will need more game time before the season starts. At the end of the day it was a friendly in about 100 degree weather with a far from first choice starting 11, if anyone is worried solely on this performance, they are off their heads. One thing that it did highlight for me is the importance Shelvey and the rest of the first choice players play in our season, we may have a lot of players but we don't have a lot of quality depth.

Better than the 11 we had out in that first half, need to be a big improvement in the 2nd.

Dummet can't take a bloody throw in and Diame not allowed jump apparently.

We had a good little spell just before the drinks break, now we've just conceded possession and playing bloody awful