Sunderland v West Ham - Monday Night Football - Sky Sports 1 8pm

Paully D

Not one that will whet the appetite of the neutral, but it's a must win game for Sunderland in their battle to stay up. A win for West Ham would virtually guarantee them survival.

Teams:

Mannone, Bardsley, Alonso, Brown, O'Shea (c), Vergini, Ki, Bridcutt, Cattermole, Borini, Wickham.

Subs: Gardner, Johnson, Colback, Altidore, Cuellar, Scocco, Ustari.

Adrian; Demel, Tomkins, Reid, McCartney; Noble, Nolan, Taylor; Downing, Carroll, Diame.

Subs: Jaaskelainen, Johnson, Armero, Jarvis, J.Cole, Nocerino, C.Cole

I think it will be tight and scrappy either way I reckon, 0-0 or 1-0 to either side.

Johner

Home win.

looking forward to watching Ki play.

Utopia Parkway

Fancy Sunderland if for no other reason than they need the points more.

Chucky the tree

Looking forward this game as a Liverpool fan. Lots of in it for that point of view and we play West Ham next sunday. Lots of red cards please.

Alfred Borden

Fancy a draw here but really would like to see Sunderland do it and stay up.

The_Kew_Tour

Fancy West Ham to win 0-2.

POKERKING

Surprised Johnson not playing, he could be the difference. Vergini is poor too. I just don't know if Sunderland have enough going forward to win this one.

Professional Griefer

Come on West Ham!

GLaDOS

Did Sam just say "Not the predicted 4-4-3"?

Paully D

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Did Sam just say "Not the predicted 4-4-3"?

Yep :pac: Even if we were allowed to play with 11 outfield players we'd still be crap!

Agueroooo

Really want Sunderland to win but only if it means WHU picking up a few reds along the way.

GLaDOS

Sunderland working it out wide well, whether they can make anything of it is the test.

Paully D

It was either going to be him or Nolan.

O'Shea beaten again. Must be at least 7 or 8 this season he's been done on at a set piece.

Professional Griefer

Yeaa!

Utopia Parkway

Poor from high shorts Cattermole. Should have equalised.

Moneymaker

That's atrocious from Cattermole.

Paully D

The one player you don't want that chance falling to.....

Richard Keys ‏@richardajkeys 26s
Sunderland haven't won in the last 24 games they've conceded the 1st goal in going back to Jan 2013 v Wigan. Won 3-2 at DW

This one is done. It's not going to be our night. Again the issue of not being able to break down teams that sit back will come back to haunt us.

Juxtapose

West Ham are also the team to lose the most games after taking the lead.

Don't worry, it's a long game and i've seen enough of us this season to know it's never a sure bet once we take the lead!

The Narrator

Score a goal after 10 minutes, defend for the other 80...

Not exactly easy on the eyes this game.

Paully D

You won't see a clearer penalty than that on Nolan's handball in the box.

Juxtapose

Sunderland doing alot of pressing now without much to show for it.

Decent game so far, was at the other fixture at upton park earlier in the year, probably the most boring game i've ever watched..

Juxtapose

Paully D wrote: »

You won't see a clearer penalty than that on Nolan's handball in the box.

Yep, when slowed down it was 100% a peno, at full speed it was probably quite hard to detect.

Still stupid to do that in the box, another case of Nolan losing the plot.

eigrod

Paully D wrote: »

You won't see a clearer penalty than that on Nolan's handball in the box.

Webb's default position is not to award penalties these days. How he is seen as a top referee is astonishing. He's woeful.

Ulysses Gaze

The Narrator wrote: »

Score a goal after 10 minutes, defend for the other 80...

Not exactly easy on the eyes this game.

You can see why West Ham fans were booing at the weekend.

They are a dire footballing side.

Paully D

****ing joke that half. The sooner this season is over and we're finally put out of our misery, the better.

mav79

Sunderland look like eleven players that have never played together.

Johner

Too many Championship standard players in that Sunderland line up. O'Shea really is awful now, Cattermole and Bardsley are shit. Vergini is shocking and so is Wickham.

The two best players they have are on loan.

Nuri Sahin

I've surprised myself by remaining awake after 45 minutes of that.

eh i dunno

Ki looks a decent player but the rest are poor. Sunderland have nothing up front. Di Canio bought a lot of duds and Altidore was the biggest dud of the lot. Hope Sunderland stay up but not looking good

Juxtapose

Nuri Sahin wrote: »

I've surprised myself by remaining awake after 45 minutes of that.

Ah it's not that bad!

I am pie

Has Scocco got any minutes? I was not sure whether he wa cut out for Prem football having watched him here.

Utopia Parkway

Another reffing masterclass from Howard Webb.

Paully D

eh i dunno wrote: »

Ki looks a decent player but the rest are poor. Sunderland have nothing up front. Di Canio bought a lot of duds and Altidore was the biggest dud of the lot. Hope Sunderland stay up but not looking good

Not a chance now mate, we're done. The downward spiral started with selling Bent and dismantling a decent squad we had at that time. We were extremely lucky last year and the poor transfer decisions have finally caught up with us and not before time.

Probably a case of needing to go down to rebuild and hope for the best in terms of coming back up, but it certainly won't be easy.

bad2dabone

How did Webb miss that peno? Dreadful.

Juxtapose

Didn't realise his view was so clear till the replays.

Madness he didn't call it.

Juxtapose

Paully D wrote: »

Not a chance now mate, we're done. The downward spiral started with selling Bent and dismantling a decent squad we had at that time. We were extremely lucky last year and the poor transfer decisions have finally caught up with us and not before time.

Probably a case of needing to go down to rebuild and hope for the best in terms of coming back up, but it certainly won't be easy.

How do you feel about Poyet as a manager?

Met a few Sunderland fans at the Upton Park game in November and they couldn't stop singing his praises despite the lack of results.

eh i dunno

Paully D wrote: »

Not a chance now mate, we're done. The downward spiral started with selling Bent and dismantling a decent squad we had at that time. We were extremely lucky last year and the poor transfer decisions have finally caught up with us and not before time.

Probably a case of needing to go down to rebuild and hope for the best in terms of coming back up, but it certainly won't be easy.

Just hope they dont do a Pompey and collapse. Bigger fanbase should help but not too many players would command huge fees would they? Sell cheap just to get them off the wage bill. A good few are only on loan aren't they like Ki Borini and Mannone. Any decent young lads coming through?

Juxtapose

Armero is a liability. He's more a winger than a wing back, defensively not as sound as McCartney. Poyet should really stick on Johnson to target him.

bad2dabone

This one's over.

Moneymaker

Fairly harsh on Sunderland. WH have contributed very little and Sunderland should have had a penalty.

Alfred Borden

Fair dues to Big Sam, doesnt play good football but grinds them results out. Doesnt look good for Sunderland

Paully D

Juxtapose wrote: »

How do you feel about Poyet as a manager?

Met a few Sunderland fans at the Upton Park game in November and they couldn't stop singing his praises despite the lack of results.

I'm happy with him. He's basically playing with 9 games less than any other club due to our awful start and up until tonight we were still in with a shout of survival. Also he's had no striker since he arrived and managed to get to a cup final.

More than happy to give him a chance to rebuild the team the way he wants it.

eh i dunno wrote: »

Just hope they dont do a Pompey and collapse. Bigger fanbase should help but not too many players would command huge fees would they? Sell cheap just to get them off the wage bill. A good few are only on loan aren't they like Ki Borini and Mannone. Any decent young lads coming through?

Could easily happen mate. The recent financial figures aren't good to say the least, but the club have things in place such as players wages automatically dropping by 40% as agreed in contracts when we do go down which should buy us a bit of time.

There's a lot of players out of contract and on loan who will be leaving so we don't have much to work with.

The kids are always there or thereabouts at the top of their leagues so hopefully we'll get a few of them involved too.

dirkmeister

Howard Webb is having a nightmare. Mannone getting high 5s from the Sunderland players might give him a clue as to whether it's a corner or goal kick.

Juxtapose

Raf32 wrote: »

Fair dues to Big Sam, doesnt play good football but grinds them results out. Doesnt look good for Sunderland

Its ugly football that wields results. Not my cup of tea as a west ham fan, but i guess safety and stability is the key this season.

I thought we were relegated in november watching the home game v sunderland, but he has turned it around in fairness.

Alfred Borden

Juxtapose wrote: »

Its ugly football that wields results. Not my cup of tea as a west ham fan, but i guess safety and stability is the key this season.

I thought we were relegated in november watching the home game v sunderland, but he has turned it around in fairness.

Some manager in fairness, i wouldnt care how ye play as long as ye got the results. Top 10 is very realistic now and if given a bit of backing, cant see why ye wouldnt push on again.

bad2dabone

lovely finish

Alfred Borden

I like Poyet, DiCanio has left a really hard job for him to do. Hard to recover the team after the damage DiCanio has caused imo. still doable though

Johner

Why wasn't he starting.

Neeson

Johner wrote: »

Why wasn't he starting.

I was wondering that last game as well.

Juxtapose

Juxtapose wrote: »

Armero is a liability. He's more a winger than a wing back, defensively not as sound as McCartney. Poyet should really stick on Johnson to target him.

There ya go.

dirkmeister

Does anyone else think that Conor Wickham pulled out of that chance?