Lush Vlad

Well summed up. Pretty much how I feel when watching us. These 1-0 away defeats to teams equally as bad as us, is really frustrating to watch. As Burnley, Brighton and Huddersfield should have been draws, or possibly even better. But our negativity and Rafa’s apparent lack of trust in tje squad (understandable, TBF) has ended up costing us.

Calling Shelvey an egg. Harsh

I really wish we would stop getting linked with Andy Carroll. Even allowing for the fact we don’t have any decent strikers at the club. I really don’t want Carroll back. I do hope it is just lazy journalism every time he’s linked.

Nothing really unless they were into the slave trade or something, ive had enough of Ashley. Well, our current owner does seem to have his employees working under slave like conditions. So it is going to probably be an upgrade and we'll all just ignore the human rights violations and arms deals As for the reeks of money. Well, that's a good thing, no? I reckon Ashley reeks of Pukka Pies and Carling.

Not to go all tin hat conspiracy theory. But I'd be interested to see how that stacks up against other clubs? That seems an outrageously high amount of games.

I mean, don't get me wrong. Players working hard and wanting to play for the club is massive for fans. As we have seen under Rafa. But the way Carver goes on there, FFS. Could you get any more clichéd? I mean, I want players to graft and put a shift in. But a bit of quality and skill would also be nice. The fact that he singled out Colback, probably just because he's from the North East, is absolutely shocking. He always has been one of the worst offenders for hiding on the pitch and he regularly just decides to pull players back or give away a pointless foul, instead of actually busting a gut to track or get back to defend.

Watching that John Carver interview, man I think I had wiped so much of that from my memory, or I just didn't give a shit about the club at the time and paid no attention. I had forgotten how bad he came across and also how awful the results were!

I totally disagree like. There aren't really a set number of teams from 10th downwards tbf, which is kind of the point. Anyone outside of the top 6 bar Watford and arguably Burnley are all about the same for one reason or another, but I'd argue that our reason is almost entirely Rafa. In terms of squad quality we'd be right down there imo and I think with any other non-top 6 manager we'd be that stand out team that looks like a cert for relegation. Agreed. Our defence is better than the sum of its parts. I put most of that down to Rafa and the coaching staff. I do feel like we would be exposed and concede far more under most other managers. I like the majority of our back four, but I don’t think any are high quality. Not yet, at least. Going forward. I think we are pretty toothless and there are next to no goals in the team. We lack pace and creativity in the final third and rarely look threatening. Individually, I don’t look at any of our attacking players and think we’re lucky to have them and they’ll be off to a bigger club soon enough. Whereas in recent years, that has actually been the case. I really do think on the whole, that this squad is made up of Championship/low end Prem players, bar a few exceptions. Throw in the fact that even ignoring the quality of the players. We are short in 2-3 positions. Then I really do think we’d be in a right scrap without Rafa.

Sb does the editing for the MOTD footage, I reckon. Nowt is happening over that FFS ………… I hope! Shelvey over zealously celebrated the goal in Cabaye’s face. Must have meant he wanted to injure him. 12 game ban.

Good ol’ Garth. Loves a mental statement

Well I was planning on going to this game. One of the only positives I can take so far.

go on... After the transfer window closed he argued that we had a perfectly fine squad and Rafa shouldn't have any complaints. Which now, of course, means that in his mind we are performing about average given our squad (i.e. a replacement manager would be doing the same). Not sure any manager in the league be able to do what Rafa has done for us and especially what we’re doing right now. I don’t see the managers who run the top 5 having the patience and character to persist with the high level of coaching, preparation, and planning to get these players ready every single week. I mean, let's not re-write history and pretend like he's perfect. But he did sign some absolute dross for Liverpool and he seemed mad keen on getting rid of Alonso for Gareth Barry! So I'm not saying that anyone he signs should just automatically be given a free pass, because Rafa rates them. All of that said. That line about Benitez is pure All managers have clubs where they don't succeed at and all managers have a long list of players that didn't work out, or were just complete and utter flops. We have had a few with Rafa already. But so what? It happens.

I mean even if you're trying not to be biased, like both sets of fans are. I am really struggling to see how they are the more attractive option? So it seems to be the training ground is owned by them and is decent. Is that basically the long and short of it, then? To say their ground is better and their fanbase is equal or better, is just laughable and clearly not true. Newcastle and SJP are known around the world, with SJP being packed out most weeks. Sunderland and the SoL are neither of those things

Just skimmed their thread asking who is a better club to buy. Wow. I was expecting a few bitter arseholes saying Sunderland, with most of the other posters shooting them down and laughing at them. But there seems to be a lot of agreement and back slapping going on. About them being the better proposition, them having the better ground, training ground, fanbase etc. They are not particularly self-aware, are they?!

Didn’t remember it being quite that far out that is even worse than I remember.

I think ‘heart broken’ is a bit strong. There is devastating news around the world that you hear about on an hourly basis. A pro footballer struggling with an injury and for a bit of form isn’t really heart breaking TBH

Yeah, we still waste some good opportunities to counter attack by hoofing the ball rather than passing it out. We're not Man City, but I think with a bit more confidence we can do better. That is fair. I understand why we play fairly deep with this team and don’t have a lot of possession. But we do enjoy an aimless punt up the pitch. Puts us under more pressure a lot of the time. Although TBF. A couple of times we tried to run and pass it out and we ended up losing it. So I’m guessing they are under instructions from Rafa and he doesn’t trust most of them in those situations.

I'd like a better keeper but he's no way as bad as people on here make him out to be. No, he’s not. But there also seems to be a few posters on here who seem to think he is immune from criticism. If you genuinely believe he wasn’t at fault for that first goal. Then fair enough. I just think it is a reglar occurence, Elliot being beaten by shots close to him or weak efforts. Whatever you think of the defendinf beforehand, he has to be stoppig that, IMO.

Isn’t it 1-2 posters defending him for his shit keeping today? Aye, everyone else is an idiot.

Yeah. He didn’t blow his whistle for every bit of contact and the game flowed well. Yedlin should have been off, mind. So I doubt Southampton fans think the same.

Yedlin and who else? If you’re thinking Hayden, then no way is that second challenge a yellow.

Yeah. Should have cleared the lot out and usually would. But went in a bit half hearted for some reason.

Regarding our attacking. We did look more of a threat. But I still think we lack pace, lump a lot of balls up to an isolated frontman and we sit quite deep. These aren’t really criticisms, per se. As Rafa is limited with his options and we lack quality. But I just never feel like we’re going to regularly create chances and we don’t have a striker in the squad that will make something out of nothing.

Kind of similar to the Liverpool game at times. They were getting into some good positions, yet I never really felt like we were going to concede. Two individual errors have cost us. We’re still pretty poor going forward. But then that is kind of to be expected when we have so many mediocre attacking players. Feels like two points dropped, TBH. Feel pretty positive about the club for a change.

I don’t think he’ll lose his place and I don’t want him to, either. I like all 4 of our centre backs at the minute. It is a strange feeling, I must say.