Friday 20 January 2012

Normal Service is resumed

I am talking about me & this blog, not Sunderland. We are doing something that we have not done of a while, win games and even consecutive games. My absence was due to depression, a bug bare of mine. Hopefully, although the depression has not gone, it has lifted enough to let me continue with these. Getting back to the important things in life, Sunderland  currently & Saturday.

As Brucie would of said, no not him but Sir Brucie, " Didn't he do well?". I must say I am impressed with Mr O'Neil. We basically have the same team but they do not look the same team. The person who is the best example of this is Cattermole. Under Bruce, yes Steve this time, I did not want him playing. He was a liability, running around like a headless chicken, sliding into anyone and liable to be sent off at anytime. Now he has a sense of purpose, still playing hard but controlled and staying on his feet. His passing has also improved, in fact the whole teams passing has. They now look for each other and look for the ball instead of heading away from it.

So what has changed, in a word, confidence. Martin has instilled in the team a belief in themselves and each other. So much so that we have seen a player that I thought we would never see again Kilgallon. After a comeback of epic proportions it is a shame he has got himself injured when Turner & Brown have recovered. For a few seasons we have been crying out for a left sided player. Stevie went out and bought one, then sat him on the bench. What has happened, MON saw what we needed and yes played McClean. The rest is history.

It shows how far we have come, that last week we went to Stamford Bridge and deserved at least a point. We would of got one if we had a striker on the pitch. This brings us to Bendtner, the enigma. A person who thinks so much of himself but fails to impress others. He is holding the ball up better than before but stays in midfield too much, giving us too few options in the box. When he is there, "barn doors" spring to mind. It is a good job that so many others are scoring. This again is quite a change from last season where the midfield could not score.

This brings us onto the transfer season. It is upon us and so far no action apart from the young guys going out on month loans. This is a good move as MON wants to see how they perform in action and feels this is better than seeing them in reserve games or training. You need to think this is very positive for them and if they prove their worth hopefully we will see them later on in the season. The problem about the January window is the quality of player available is not great. You get the odd bargain but mainly players teams want to off-load. Not the best time to buy. Also Martin has not been around long enough to judge the whole squad.

Do we need to go out and buy a striker? Well we do need one, Bendtner is just not up too it. So far he has been impervious to Martin's charms except for his midfield work. We do have Wickham, Ji & Fraizer, either back or almost back. Young Ryan maybe too, if he proves himself at Derby. I would not say no to a decent striker but we have so many young ones bubbling under, we don't want to discourage them and we do seem to be scoring via midfield. Would it not be better to hold off until the summer, if we can, and have someone properly scouted and who we really want. not like this season a last minute loan deal who seems not to be able to score.

Maybe a reason MON is not looking around is that at Villa he got a reputation as a manager who spends and he wants to show that he only spends when needed. I think that so far Martin has given us no reason to doubt his judgement and so we need to trust in his judgement on this.

This weekend's game will be interesting, Swansea like playing football and have beaten teams like Arsenal recently. I do think though that we will beat them, our confidence is currently too high. The fans have a new sense of belief giving the stadium a great atmosphere. We will be to strong for Swansea and so a happy weekend for us all and let us all shout.


Ha'waaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy 
the Lads

2 comments:

  1. Yes lots of positives for us now. Fact is we don't need to buy. Give MON time to see what this squad can do. One thing we can say Brucey did buy some decent players after all! C'mon!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. yep I agree but he could not get them to play. Look how many have come and gone under his rule.

    ReplyDelete