Sunderland v Aston Villa Match Thread

[OCD]

You can imagine MON's thoughts as he reads the team sheet.

Lowton; never heard of him
Vlaar; that's a strange name
Bennett; must be one of the kids coming through
Westwood; nope, no idea
Benteke; must be a mis-print surely

[paulcomben]

Bardsley, Cuellar and Gardner in their team. Glad they ain't in ours. Now don't go scoring, you 3.

[damon loves JT]

Come on Villa.

[Monty]

I wonder if it's something to do with what he knows about MON. We all remember how we used to (fuck it, still do) struggle against supposedly weaker sides who kept the ball better in the face of our physical, counter-attacking approach. Maybe that's why he's gone with such a ball-playing midfield.

[Monty]

You can imagine MON's thoughts as he reads the team sheet.

Lowton; never heard of him
Vlaar; that's a strange name
Bennett; must be one of the kids coming through
Westwood; nope, no idea
Benteke; must be a mis-print surely

Haha, brilliant.

[paul_e]

I wonder if it's something to do with what he knows about MON. We all remember how we used to (fuck it, still do) struggle against supposedly weaker sides who kept the ball better in the face of our physical, counter-attacking approach. Maybe that's why he's gone with such a ball-playing midfield.

That's my thoughts on it, keep the ball in midfield and have 'wide forwards' to drag their wide midfielders backwards.

[PeterWithesShin]

Come on Villa, let's twat these feckers!

[damon loves JT]

Amen, let us indeed twat them.

[Pete3206]

Bannan and Westwood? Oh dear

[Toronto Villa]

Bannan and Westwood? Oh dear

Why? The one thing you can set your watch by is that a MON team will give you the ball and play on the counter. If we have players that can keep the ball then we will have a good chance.

[PaulWinch again]

Bannan and Westwood? Oh dear

Not sure you can be in a position to judge Westwood yet, and Bannan can't be worse than our midfield last week.

[Pete3206]

Bannan and Westwood? Oh dear

Why? The one thing you can set your watch by is that a MON team will give you the ball and play on the counter. If we have players that can keep the ball then we will have a good chance.

I can see the midfield getting totally overrun. Even at Sunderland.

[Monty]

Bannan and Westwood? Oh dear

Not sure you can be in a position to judge Westwood yet, and Bannan can't be worse than our midfield last week.

Though he's hardly torn up many trees, we have looked better this season with Bannan rather than Delph in the side, in my view.

[hilts_coolerking]

I'm apprehensive.  I'm not sure what basis there is for believing we're miraculously going to stop giving the ball away and with very few in that line-up looking capable of getting it back it could be a long afternoon.

On the other hand, if we deal with their set pieces and crosses well enough Sunderland could play all year and not score.  So who knows maybe we'll nick it 1-0 with a Weimann screamer from 0.5 yards.

I just hope football is the winner.*

* which of course means not the mealy-mouthed self-interested tracksuit-tucking in tosser.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

An awful lot of chopping and changing again. How is consistency meant to be achieved? Makes you wonder why he picked Albrighton, Delph and Holman last week, when it should have been Weimann, Bannan and Ireland.

Did you not stop to think that maybe he doesn't know his best team yet, hence the changes for most matches? Makes sense to everyone to do that.