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QPR Vs Sunderland pre match chat
at 19:07 31 Oct 2024

Ok I have been waiting for a pre match thread to start rather than jump onto other threads not necessarily linked to the game, so I hope you don’t mind me starting this one.

I will start with this link to an analysis of how Sunderland played against Oxford, which I hope gives you an idea of how we try to play. For balance I will post one about how we lost to Plymouth when I find it.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/how-did-the-lads-pummel-oxford.1643560/pag

So how are we, Sunderland fans feeling? Well as you might expect, five points clear at the top and having our best start to a season since 1892, yes 1892, we are a very happy bunch of campers!

We always seem to come to your place in good form and do well, while you lot come up north a take a point off us. Obviously I am hoping that the first part of that pattern continues on Saturday.

I posted this on the other thread but will add it here as well, it is a podcast, What The Falk, which previews the game with Clive from Loft for Words.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6UG9HvDksg8HHJzqVPm7W5?si=jFXEb51FSpO16PQ7TD1md

Listening to that it would appear that your new owners have looked at what we have done with recruitment and tried to do the same. The difference would appear to be our 26 year old is the owner of the club and he has appointed people who know how to run a football club , while your owners have appointed a 26 year old, with little or no football experience to run your recruitment.

The result is at our end we have recruited very well and at very little cost. The team we started with against Oxford cost less than £6m to assemble, if we were to sell them now the value would be over £100m by some estimates, Jobe and Rigg making up the bulk of that.

I will leave you to comment on how your data based recruitment has gone.

We continue to field the youngest starting eleven in the division most weeks and this has led to a number of commentators saying will will fall away due to inexperience, that may be the case, but when you look at players like Dan Neil with almost 100 championship appearances and even Jobe with 50, they may be young but they are not inexperienced. What’s more a lot of the team have been playing together three years and have a good understanding with each other.

So what has changed since last season, in short we have a new manager who enjoys working with intelligent young players who can adapt to different playing patterns in game, resulting in a fluid formation with each player well drilled in what is expected and wonder of wonders we actually have strikers! Last season we played without a striker, I think the so called strikers managed about two goals between them, I am not kidding with that stat either. This often meant we had no one willing to get into the box and when we got forward the wide players had no one to cross to, so took on the shot, this obviously worked well for Jack Clarke. It did mean we were over reliant on Clarke as our only attacking outlet at times. This season we have options up top and players who know when and where to make runs into the box, it is almost like we have filled a hole in the team.

So what has changed in terms of personnel? Not much really. We lost Clarke, but we had his replacement already on the books, in Mundle, who has started very well with four goals already, he is bigger and stronger than Clarke and will run at your right back every chance he gets, we already have his replacement coming through in a young lad called Tommy Watson, and his replacement appears to be developing nicely in the under 18’s a kid called Walsh, but that is the way the director of football is trying to develop the squad.

In terms of new signings in the starting eleven, you will see Wilson Isidor starting up top , four goals in six starts and some beautiful goals as well. He is on loan from St Petersburg with a commitment to buy if we go up and an option to buy if we don’t. He looks like the solution to our striker issues and this has changed the way we play and has increased the threat we cause to other teams. The only other one likely to start is Chris Metham, on loan from Bournemouth, he came into the team when Dan Ballard was injured and has formed a very good partnership with our very own little shithouse Luke ONien , a player you love to have in your team but hate if he plays against you. Other than that the other nine were on our books last season.

The key to how we play is centred on an intelligent press, not all out pressing which can result in gaps in midfield if the press fails, but pressing at key points and in numbers, basically setting traps for the other team. Once the press has won the ball we transition very quickly into attacking positions. Out of possession we hold our formation very tight in the middle of the park, giving up space wide on either side, allowing the other teams wide players some space just inside our own half before the wider of the midfield players on that side and the full back double up on the player in possession with a third and sometimes a forth midfielder or defender closing off any outlet.

We sometimes forget that the average age of the three in the middle is only 19, but in Jobe we have a player who is bossing games like he is a mature experienced player, his ceiling is very high, then you have the 17 year old Chris Rigg, who commentators are saying is possibly even better than Jobe.

If that all sounds too good to be true it might be and like all football fans we see games through rose tinted spectacles when things are going well and just now they are going very well, so my specs might well be very tinted.

But we have lost two games and been challenged in others so how have teams done this? Against Plymouth in the second half they played at a very high intensity and forced mistakes, a penalty and an own goal leading to two of their three goals and against Watford having got back into the game Dan Neil gave away a needless penalty . So running at us in the box has forced errors and we can be susceptible to the odd brain fart .

I do think you have some quality in your squad and a decent manager and your position is false, there are teams much worse than you in this league and you will not go down, but what do you think?

I will find the tactical analysis of at least one off the two defeats, so you can so what we did wrong and post those later.

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Sunderland at home
at 11:14 11 Sep 2023

I have popped on to this board for the last two games against you and, in the main had a good friendly discussion, so here goes.

How are you feeling about your start to the season and you newish manager (he wasn’t in charge last time we played you).

Ainsworth and Sunderland have always had a bit of a love hate relationship, loved how he got results on a shoestring and his kind words about Sunderland, but hated his style of play and the thuggery he used At Wycombe.

For us the transfer window is being judged as a success, leaving us with an even younger team that last year, the average age of the starting eleven is about 22 years and one month. A lot of kids with massive talent and the home grown Chris Rigg only 16 and two goals already.

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