Sunderland 1 West Ham 0
Rejoice! We’re off the bottom for 24 hours thanks to Wolves losing 3-0 at Blackburn. At least until we visit the Stadium of Shite.
I manage to get into the Bank of Friendship to watch the second half after the school winter fair. Matt isn’t too impressed to judge by his text of “ This isn’t the Hammers of last Tuesday — woeful! Scotty nowhere near being fit Carlton back to being useless – less presence on the left than the coalition government plus no keeper on the bench – typical WHU!”
Kieron Dyer is a strange choice, as he’s not featured in either of the week’s wins, unlike Barrera who played in both, while Jacobsen appears to be injured and so Ben Haim is at right back. Grant has opted for Cole and Obinna and relegated Piquionne to the bench.
Sunderland are a goal ahead through a fine finish from Jordan Henderson. Gyan has sprung our offside trap on the right and delivered a rapid cross for Henderson to open his body up and sidefoot into the top corner. Sadly there’s no runner with him so even the other Jordan might have scored given the freedom of the box.
Boa Morte has been booked early on when he could have been red-carded and Gyan has hit the bar with a clever lob. Our only chance has been an Obinna free kick straight at the keeper until Jonathan Spector suddenly metamorphosises into Lionel Messi again, beating two Sunderland players with a clever stepover running into the box and shooting just wide.
Matt is perhaps overdoing the pessimism a bit on the evidence of the second half. Sunderland haven’t lost at home in the league all season and we start the second half with Obinna finding Cole who turns on the edge of the box and sends a low shot narrowly wide.
Green makes a decent stop from Gyan’s drive but our defence looks reasonably solid. Piquionne and Hines come on in an attempt to save the game. Our best effort comes when Obinna fires in a left foot shot that strikes the outside of the post.
One positive is that James Tomkins has another excellent game. Late on Green fumbles and he makes a fantastic block to deny a certain goal.
But in a cagey game Sunderland play out time to gain another three points. “So predictable,” texts Nigel.
We haven’t played that badly, but we still haven’t won away from home since the first day of last season at Wolves. Grant needs to decide what his best side is and now we have to aim for three points at Blackburn and Fulham.
We’re bottom again as Wolves have scored more goals. Oh dear, I should never have baited all those Man United fans. Normal service has been resumed.
2 comments:
The BBC said Jordan Spence was on the bench, rather than Marek Stech, hence my comment. The rest of it was accurate though, even if the second half was slightly better than the first.
Still, at least Carlito has had the good grace to get himself suspended for Saturday's game. There's still hope - if Mancini plays 10 holding midfielders we could scrape a 0-0.
On the other hand we might revitalise the career of Sean Wright-Phillips whom we are apparently keen on...
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