mrfahaji

Fair enough, but those 'new' quotes at the end aren't anything to do with him staying/leaving, that was really what I was getting at.

Ha, unless I'm mistaken there are no new quotes at all from Graziano...

Was he being interviewed by Italian press in Italy? If so it's hardly a surprise that he said nice things about his own country...

Even though their general style of play is less anti-football now than under Pulis, I would say that our games at the Britannia last season were evidence that they are more than capable of being a dirty side. The league cup game especially - first half we completely outplayed them and second half they kicked us all over the place. In fairness to Hughes, it almost worked, as they clawed back the two goal deficit and we clearly couldn't deal with their aggression.

The persistence with Phil Jones is the biggest thing that stands out as strange to me. Last week Louis Van Gaal, a man who values keeping clean sheets above all else it seems, preferred to play Ashley Young, an inconsistent Left Winger, at Right Back than to risk future England captain Phil Jones there.

I actually thought the Championship was, but only slightly. Admittedly it's hard to judge against different quality opposition, and he seemed to improve in some aspects of his game (dropping deep, picking passes) to make up for others that were waning (pace, mobility). In the second PL season the decline definitely outweighed any improvements. While the Champ/PL may be debatable, didn't think there was any question about that, surprised so many people think otherwise!

Victor wanted to join Tottenham in the summer, if they finish fourth I can't see that we will be able to stop them taking him - I guess the question will be, if they are in the CL, will they still see Wanyama as a top target? Or maybe they'll be happy to stick with Dier/Mason doing that job.

I wasn't "watching for mistakes", it was something that I had noticed while watching the games. And I also stated that I didn't initially agree with The9's assertion, but began to think that he had a point in several matches this season. I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon or just believe what people say, but equally I'm prepared to change my mind or accept another point of view if I can see the evidence for it.

Sorry if I was supposed to compile a set of statistics to support my opinion, I don't think my opening statement was particularly scathing or 'biased' to be honest.

5 defensive errors after 11 games seems awfully low for the highest on the list, not sure how that's been classified. Mine is purely through observation since having my attention drawn to it.

I recall reading posts from The9 about his “1 mistake every game” and thought it was harsh and the sort of thing people say when they have an irrational dislike for a player. Since then though, nearly every time I’ve seen Yoshida play he has made a mistake that has led to the opposition having a goalscoring opportunity. For the most part he does well and he certainly doesn’t let the side down when he is called upon, but I think he is slightly more prone to a lack of concentration and/or a sloppy pass than our other regular defenders.

So the gist of your post is "Stekelenburg is playing because Forster is injured".

Interesting that the article highlights the correlation between price of ticket and likelihood of leaving early. There's a piece in the book "Freakonomics" which is similar - about how people are late to pick their kids up from childcare, and when they are charged $5 when they are late, the number of late parents actually increases. I wonder if ticket prices being so expensive has shifted the mindset of the supporter so that there is now greater entitlement to feeling entertained, and less a sense of privilege to be part of something.

My mistake, please ignore - I followed the link to the Chelsea page and thought people were still discussing that one (VVD was in it too), where he has Schlupp as one of the centre backs.

Yes those may be legitimate reasons, but I wonder how many people leaving early are going for those, and how many just simply to gain 15 minutes on the traffic. If you're on your own, you can still listen to the radio, and then conduct your own imaginary press conference with how you saw the game. Probably better than having company to be honest.

I was 10 years old when we played at Filbert Street in 1994. When we went 4-1 down I threw a tantrum and wanted to go home. My dad obliged and we left about 5 minutes early. We got back to the car and put the radio on, it finished 4-3. Admittedly, still not enough for victory but enough to make my dad thoroughly p*ssed off and me to never leave a game early ever again. While I understand that sitting in traffic is frustrating, surely listening to the radio and chatting about the game after makes it go quicker than normal, and besides, what is so important that you are prepared to sacrifice the end of the game for? X Factor?

Even one of his centre backs is a left wing back/winger. Utterly ridiculous, why not just call it "best players of the week"?

SaintBobby you've just been slammed by david in sweden for being verbose...

If we lose to Spurs then I'll want to win the other 5 to make up for it...! I'm guessing City will have Silva & Aguero back by the time we go there? Without them City are not quite the same prospect.

Do you think this could be because of Sunderland's tactics? For Mane in particular, every time he picked up the ball they were on to him straight away and often had a second defender covering. Because Allardyce set them up to be so defensive, they could focus on this gameplan; most teams will surely prefer to have some sort of attacking threat... I would like to see us get to the byline and play the ball in across the ground a bit more (like Davis' goal vs Bournemouth). It seems that when we're struggling to break teams down, we end up lofting it in towards Pelle all the time. Occasionally it works but Sunderland dealt with it most of the time. Admittedly, this tends to come from our own full backs, and playing Yoshida therefore limits us in this respect, but think we could still mix it up more than we do currently.

True, but extremely upsetting.

Yep, found the commentator's matter-of-fact "there wasn't contact so it's not a penalty" a bit frustrating, in the same way pundits say "there was contact so he's entitled to go down there". PS - it seems you are a stickler for accuracy, so I think it was McManaman not McLean ;-)

I think Yoshida played well, but the formula for calculating the bonus scores in that Fantasy Football game is a complete joke.

It wasn't a great game but it was never likely to be. Sunderland were hoping for a 1-0, and would have been satisfied with a 0-0. The first half was one of organisation from them, but very little adventure going forward. As a result, we controlled the game but were limited to half chances. We should have done better with the final ball but we weren't playing badly. Once we scored it was hard to justify going for a second when doing a pretty solid job defensively. Sunderland are a very poor side, but nevertheless Spurs, West Ham and Swansea have all gone to the Stadium and Light and struggled to come away with a win.