BFTMFG - Sunderland (H)

[Norfolk Royal]

Thought Feds deserved an eight and possibly Mariappa who to my mind looks more assured every game now. Nearly scored as well.

[cmonurz]

Ratings and more thoughts when I'm off this fcuking bus, but from the South stand looked like Pog got the ball, I think I need new contact lenses.

Jobi might have won a pen, he got two nudges in the back and went down, and got tangled up with their defenders. Certainly wasn't a foul against him.

As on the match thread, terrific delivery from Harte for the winner, although he'd been due one if those having picked out the first defender/Mignolet far too often today.

[Norfolk Royal]

Thought the ref got the Jobi incident right on the replays tbf. If anything was a foul there, it was Jobi's challenge on the last defender. Were many other questionable decisions by the ref.

[Big Ern]

Straight after the game, thought a draw was a fair result, however I take that back as we took our chances and they didn't so we deserved the win,

Generally solid all round, Kebe will get MOTM for his 2 goals, but Fed made some important saves as well. Only negative about fed was he pushed a shot straight to a Sunderland forward, however his second follow up save was excellent. Ledge was probably our poorest player as he had his usual wasteful game. Mention to McCleary who was causing Sunderland a lot of problems in the first half and a good first start for Akpan.

All in all a workman type victory and a crucial 3 points. Stoke away next week and anything other than a defeat will keep the momentum going for our crucial next home game against Wigan on the 23rd. Still think it will be hard, but I am starting to believe. We still need to show Newcastle was not a one off and pick up a few more points away from home to really pull away from the relegation scrap.

Finally, not impressed with Sunderland's diving and the fact the ref bought it most of the time.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Wow - Sunderland were no mugs they had real quality at times. Tough tough game for us & absolutely over the moon at the win. I'd have taken a point today.

CBA to rate them all but Akpan?? Fcuk me this kid looks like a real find. Him / Mariappa MOTM for me can't decide.

Special mention for Kebe especially scoring with his head!!!

[cmonurz]

I sit in the NE corner. If Pog got the ball at all (he didn't) he did so having taken out the man first. I've not seen a clearer penalty in years. Silly rash challenge, but he played quite well otherwise.

Agreed he had a good game, took a bit of a battering from O'Shea and Bramble, but kept working hard and linked particularly well with McCleary. Couple of exquisite flicks on to no-one too.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

I am a bit sad & I record GSS whilst at the game & watch the goals back when I get home.

Just watching the 2nd one and Jeff Stelling looks at his watch and says "What time is it? Its Reading time". Brilliant!

[Ian Royal]

Played some good football throughout that and good attacking threat. Still looked a little panicked at times with some unnecessary hoofs to nowhere. Overall I think you have to say McDermott got the team and tactics spot on. Until a rash challenge from Pog put them back in it, there looked like only one winner. Thats when our play started to slip and they started to come back into it.

There were some worrying moments in a scrappy second half that was a bit open, but all in all I think just about a deserved win.

Federici - 8 - seems back to his best, one save palmed into potential danger but he got the second save in, and I think our defence should have been sharper
Kelly - 7 - seems to be the steady 7/10 player we've needed to come in at right back
Harte - 7 - some dodgy moments, some dodgy set pieces, and one that made the difference.
Pearce - 7 - solid as usual, could still work on his headers away going to blue and white shirts a bit better
Mariappa - 7 - solid as well, I don't think Sunderland reall threatened us a great deal for large swathes of the game so I'm not going above those scores
Leigertwood - 6 - some terrible passing, some decent passing and good tackling. I think we might miss him if he was dropped
Akpan - 8 - looked really composed and played good positive balls. Some panicked hoofing, but made a real difference.
McAnuff - 8 - best central performance for me. He was everywhere, still defending, caused Sunderland problems at the back and moved the ball around well.
McCleary - 7 - some of his play was excellent, but some of it was less good.
Kebe - 9 MotM - two goals, he's really stepping up in getting beyond Pog and attacking crosses. Good defensively and some decent crosses too.
Pog - 6.5 - played very well apart from one moment of absolute madness.

ALF - 7 - nice touches and worked hard, but nothing quite fell his way.
Blackman - 6 - bit anonymous and a little lacking in obvious quality, but some definite promise there. Not worth £1m+ on that showing, but 15 minutes is pretty meaningless to judge on.

McDermott - 9 - got it spot on.
Ref - 6 - most of the big decisions right, but I thought he gave quite a lot of soft calls to them and not many to us.
Fans - 7 - probably a bit too early for the first ALF chant, went a bit quite for large parts of the middle of the game. Hope you enjoyed it!

[Ian Royal]

Ratings and more thoughts when I'm off this fcuking bus, but from the South stand looked like Pog got the ball, I think I need new contact lenses.

Jobi might have won a pen, he got two nudges in the back and went down, and got tangled up with their defenders. Certainly wasn't a foul against him.

As on the match thread, terrific delivery from Harte for the winner, although he'd been due one if those having picked out the first defender/Mignolet far too often today.

Pog took none of the ball and plenty of foot. McAnuff took a couple of nudges I think could (and maybe should) have been a penalty, but he then did trip the Sunderland player from the floor. So once the pen not given, the freekick was correct.

[RoyalBlue]

Thought Feds deserved an eight and possibly Mariappa who to my mind looks more assured every game now. Nearly scored as well.

An 8, possibly even a 9 for Feds. He produced a couple of brilliant saves at 1-1 to keep us in it when Sunderland were building up a real head of steam. One iffy moment in the first half when he failed to hold onto a difficult shot but recovered extremely quickly to close down and block the follow up effort.

[RoyalBlue]

Thought the ref got the Jobi incident right on the replays tbf. If anything was a foul there, it was Jobi's challenge on the last defender. Were many other questionable decisions by the ref.

The biggest complaints I had about Mason were:

He booked McAnuff for a pretty soft foul/challenge early on and put himself if a very difficult situation in terms of how he dealt with all subsequent challenges during the game. Let Sunderland off several yellows that should have been issued had he applied the same standard as he did to McAnuff's challenge.

Continually allowed Sunderland defenders to hold down our players when the ball was played towards them in the air - at one point he was looking straight at their player who had both hands firmly grasping Pog's shoulders. He also seems to think it is permissible to wrap your arm right around a forward and hold him as he is trying to move towards the ball!

Not the worst ref we have seen but a long way from the best.

[SLAMMED]

MOTM - Jimmy Kebe.

HJKHDWHW

[Maguire]

Massive win, played well.

Mariappa was very good, probably my man of the match.

[winchester_royal]

Have to say that's the best we've looked playing 4-5-1 all season. Shouldn't have changed to 4-4-2 IMO but all's well that ends well.

Akpan was excellent, Mariappa superb, and Kelly solid. Nobody played badly and like the look of Blackman who seemed strong, quick and has a decent touch. Raw but promising.

Huge win that, gives us a real chance. Still think we're likely to go down but if the luck goes our way in the next 14 games we have a real chance and who'd have thought we'd be saying that 8 weeks ago?

[Super Kevin Bremner!]

For those that still don't understand football, Pog was brilliant today. Peno aside he was like velcro and took so much pressure off the whole team in being so.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Have to say that's the best we've looked playing 4-5-1 all season. Shouldn't have changed to 4-4-2 IMO but all's weel that ends well.

Akpan was excellent, Mariappa superb, and Kelly excellent. Nobody played badly and like the look of Blackman who seemed strong, quick and has a decent touch. Raw but promising.

Huge win that, gives us a real chance. Still think we're likely to go down but if the luck goes our way in the next 14 games we have a real chance and who'd have thought we'd be saying that 8 weeks ago?

I agree with everything you said there. Thought 4-4-2 was the wrong move & they started to get the ball a bit too much after that IMO. We are getting better all the time though - you can really see it. Can't fault any of the midfield today all of them were great - best overall midfield performance all season for me.

[Maguire]

For those that still don't understand football, Pog was brilliant today. Peno aside he was like velcro and took so much pressure off the whole team in being so.

Agreed. Such a tough role to play and he was class today.

[Ouroboros]

For those that still don't understand football, Pog was brilliant today. Peno aside he was like velcro and took so much pressure off the whole team in being so.

Agreed. Such a tough role to play and he was class today.

+1.

Wish we would play it more often into his feet.

[winchester_royal]

For those that still don't understand football, Pog was brilliant today. Peno aside he was like velcro and took so much pressure off the whole team in being so.

Agreed. Such a tough role to play and he was class today.

Absolutely, the guy is pure quality. Didn't expect him to be much other than a goalscorer when we signed him but very pleasantly surprised. Anyone who calls him a donkey/clown needs to be put down.

[soggy biscuit]

Only got to the game on the 70th minute today.