Tsunami

Love this Sunderland Echo story. Sunderland would finish 6th in the 2nd Division 77/78. Maradona had made his club debut in Oct 76 and turned 17 in Oct 77 having just made his international debut. It turns out that as opposed to wanting to play for Argentina or play for Boca, his club, that he really wanted to play for Sunderland at home to Oldham for his 17th birthday. Maradona, then just 17-years-old, was attracting interest having burst onto the scene for the national team as well as his club side, Argentinos Juniors. And one of the first clubs to register an interest in the attacker were Sunderland - with Maradona keen to make the move. But Argentina, then ruled by a military dictatorship, declared Maradona 'untransferrable' and demanded he remained on home soil. Despite threatening to retire in order to seal a move to Wearside, the youngster was forced to stay in his homeland before eventually moving to Barcelona in 1982 as he missed out on his dream move to Roker Park. As Maradona’s biographer, Daniel Arcucci, explained: “The first offer that Maradona received was from England’s Sunderland in 1977 and Maradona wanted to go. “He said ‘If they don’t sell me to Sunderland, I’m retiring’. At that time we didn’t have a democratic government and they declared him untransferable, one of a group of players who were untransferable

Legend. RIP. Give God his hand back please.

Grealish goal against Brighton was canny to be fair. SJP erupted.

He’s trolling us massively by making a stottie if nothing is happening. Just needs to fill it with ham, pease pudding with a bag of Tudor on the side to complete it.

You’d have ran passed us in the G&D, at that time we were never out of the place as it was the nearest pub to work.

Me and my mate were wondering what day in March we’d need to book off in March to celebrate the title. It was absolute agony watching what unfolded.

When it all comes down to it this is what did us. I still can’t believe what happened tbh. When Batty scores at Blackburn I was convinced we’d just get there, I then watched the Forest game on a night out in town and can’t begin to describe how I felt when Woan scored. Fenton Miss control by Batty https://www.premierleague.com/video/single/1785310?PLAYLIST=15723

Pathetic, it’s taken a while to get there but Bruce now deserves the criticism that was coming his way previously. We were like a paid sparring partner today. Bruce’s tactics now have the players nervous in possession and unable to support any attack. Other than a quick counter attack or set piece we offer nothing and we don’t even attempt to disrupt the opposition momentum. Truly pathetic.

Absolute dross this. Nice to VAR not working.

I have no idea on what grounds they propose bringing the action but would imagine they need material interest and loss to be evident? They can’t be doing so on behalf of someone else. Do we know what they’ve actually asked for?

Grealish has come on loads tbf. England have some real talent how Dier gets a start is beyond me. Mount whilst a good player shouldn’t be a starter either.

Got to find a way to build the midfield around Grealish, he’s a real talent now and should be allowed a fairly free role.

Never a free kick for the second goal mind. If anything it’s a free kick to us as Rice is the player getting kicked. You have to be allowed to challenge. As for the performance, we clearly lack pace in key areas and having Dier, Rice and Henderson in the same team isn’t going to work. Dier in particular isn’t good enough to be anywhere near an England player.

When I was a bairn I always preferred him to Shilton, not sure he was better but he was a cracking keeper.

KK bought Shaka from Reading who had lost the play off final when he should have signed Nigel Martyn who'd just been relegated with Palace. Martyn and Hendry would have great business.

Pav was loved up here but between him, Hooper & Shak you’d struggle to make the keeper we needed. Those quotes from Pav suggest how fragile he was & I very much doubt that KK delivered those words in a negative way. Look up the game at Southampton the year before we blew the league. I vividly remember sitting in my car waiting to pick my girlfriend up listening to the end of the game, 1-0 up, thinking at last we’d win down there (obviously not knowing there’d be years more disappointment) and we conceded 3 goals in the last 4 minutes. All 3 goals were comedy, Pav should have been replaced at the end of that season.

Really? Never looked like scoring but you just knew they would.

Absolutely predictable that. Unreal.

Ian Woan/ Graeme Fenton, take your pick. So many missed opportunities to win the league, 1 signing away, we gave teams a chance and away from home too many times we weren’t strong enough. We should have won the league by at least 7 points. The raw figures from the league suggest that we really were 2nd best, the truth is that it took a real combination of fairly unlikely circumstances for us not to win it. I can’t believe to this day that some of the players doubted that they’d see it through. A real leader on the pitch; we’d have pissed it and would have built on it. We never recovered.

We were a soft touch at times when we blew the league. Forget the games we usually think of that season, away games at Wimbledon, West Ham, Man City & typically Southampton spring to mind where we dropped points either through not being strong enough mentally or we just didn’t turn up.

Had KK known how to sign a top keeper and bought Colin Hendry we’d have been almost unstoppable.

Haha, classic fans are deluded tripe. Trouble is fans of other clubs lap this up, it obviously makes them all feel better about themselves. Ignore the facts, let’s just trot out the lazy lines.

Gordon Lee - Sold Supermac and didn't want a team of stars. And got us into Europe. His fault is that he buggered off. McClaren was just shocking.

You could see him feel his hamstring chasing a woeful over hit pass; he didn’t actually chase it that hard.

Woeful