The Black Cats endured a tough day at Old Trafford yesterday, with Manchester United coming out 3-0 winners. After a mainly solid first half, Memphis scored in first-half injury time to put the home side in front. Rooney then scored within a minute of the restart, and Juan Mata put the game to bed in the 90th minute. A tough result to take after quite a good first half, and quite a good defensive performance in the second, but keeps Sunderland bottom of the table. We’re going to have a look through what we’ve learnt after Saturday’s game.
A Cut Above
The atmosphere with Sunderland fans pre-match was pretty poor, with the talk of how we can’t continually blame the manager, the players and people who’ve bought the players need blame too. Looking at some of the deadwood we’ve signed over the last few years, how can we justify having a director of football?
The Black Cats faithful new we were in for a tough game, with the talk not of whether United would win, but how many they’d win by. We defended well first half, but Manchester United are just too good for a team of our level. We saw in the week against United’s rivals Manchester City, that the top teams are going to do well against a poor side like us.
Even against Spurs, it finished 1-0 and The Black Cats were marginally the better side, but good teams take their chances and tear you apart. Sunderland have missed far too many good opportunities already this season, with every team we’ve come up against taking theirs. Top of the league Manchester United just looked far too good. Comfortable on the ball, pace up top and with creative players like Memphis and Mata, you know there is going to be a large number of chances. Sadly for Sunderland, they took their chances and finished with 3 goals.
Lee Lee Lee!
He’s back! After a solid second half performance in the cup last week, Cattermole was given a start against The Red Devils. It’s common knowledge that Cattermole has been very poor this season, but he was very good against United. Sat in front of the defence and made some very good tackles in order to give Kaboul and O’Shea less to do. Cattermole was down injured twice in the first half, and being the fighter that he is, he managed to finish the game very well. A very good sight for the Black Cats fans.
AJ’s gone
There must be a lot going on inside the head of Adam Johnson at the moment, and it’s really showing. After dislocating his shoulder in the season’s opener at Leicester, Johnson came back to the side against Bournemouth. Everything that Johnson touched yesterday went away from him and gave away possession. You know you’ve played terribly when the manager openly comes out and says how bad you were. Johnson is one of Sunderland’s few key players, but at the moment he’s really struggling. Hopefully, Johnson can get himself sorted out, and come back the player we’ve all come to love.
Toivonen is too luxury.
Toivonen is a new signing at the Stadium of Light and has produced some very good displays. However, he needs to be playing for a side that actually have the ball, and attack. Going forward, the Swede is very good on the ball, by helping us attack. But defensively, he’s very lazy. I don’t think he’s too good for a side like Sunderland, but we need players like Borini and Cattermole, that no matter how the game is going, they still put the same amount of energy in. It’s very clear to see that Toivonen doesn’t like defending, which is something we do not need. Like it or not, Sunderland are going to be spending most of their games defending, no matter who we’re playing against. Toivonen will need to start defending more and putting the effort in while coming back to help.
