Even the BORO can’t mess this one up surly. Sunderland are dire and anything but a win and the whole team should hang up there boots and Pulis should walk. It shows just how poor the league is this year when we averaged 1.5 and we are in the mix. A preach poor return for the investment made. I hate the playoffs it’s simply not right. The idea of playing a season of football is the points prove your worth and third spot should get promoted. What’s the point of playing a season of football to scrap the results and have a knock out. Wrong it’s so wrong.

I love the playoffs.

Keeps things interesting for a hell of a lot of teams. Imagine if it was just 3rd that went up our season would have bee over long ago, but we’re still in this season despite us playing poor.

I love the playoffs.

Keeps things interesting for a hell of a lot of teams. Imagine if it was just 3rd that went up our season would have bee over long ago, but we’re still in this season despite us playing poor.

 

I agree with this.

I know being in 3rd means you have had a better season that the team in 6th, but all teams enter the season knowing the deal. Top 2 up automatically. Next 4 you are playing for the right to be in those play offs.

And they are bloody exciting.

Will we see a Sunderland team who wants to give their fans something to celebrate? I think so and for that reason I believe they will come for us from the off, we will need to weather a storm for a while but we can catch them on the break, first goal is vital in this game and a draw simply not good enough for either team.

Do you think the club insisted that Fletcher plays in this one as part of the loan agreement? ;)

The cost cutting started after Eindhoven, I think Gibson knew that model was unsustainable.

 

We still spent big on transfers from time to time but the cloth cutting started back then especially with the wage bill.

 

Think you are right about that. I seem to remember Gibson saying that even though we were doing well in the Premier League and going to a European final we were still losing money and that's just not sustainable.

Is Rudy injured? Rumours that he is? In that case will we finally se Paddy up top?

I think if Rudy is injured, Britt will start.

 

Rumours will be because he limped off on Tuesday, apparently.

They started off with high expectations because we'd just been relegated, you could say the same for us now.  The difference is that didn't have a particularly good squad back then and signed some awful players on top of that unfortunately but we were in a cost cutting period.  I'm not sure you can say that now.

 

The cost cutting period started after Strachan with Mowbray though.

 

And ofc the aim with this season was not to end 8th, but it still doesent mean we are garbage as most of you seem to think.

 

Maybe som of the players we have now also his not as good as we think, just with the players that we bought under Strachan?

 

The cost cutting started before Strachan while we had Southgate as manager.  It continued on through Strachan and Mowbray until Karanka.

 

Semantics maybe but i don't think i 100% agree with that. Yes we didn't spend as much with Southgate in the Championship than we did in the Prem, but that goes without saying doesn't it. There was still money to spend under Southgate and there was still plenty to spend under Strachan. Mowbray was the first to be tasked with selling before he could buy to clear out the squad. Karanka just cleared out the players he didn't want.

Rudy Gestede is out for the season broken ankle

I’d love to see Britt and Bamford up top now with Downing and Traore on the wings but we know that won’t happen.

 

Starting to look worryingly light up top. This is not a joke... but can we recall Fletcher? I don’t think it’s needed at the moment. But another injury to Bamford/Britt and we would really be struggling!

This could be the making of Paddy or Britt, one of whom now has to play as a striker. If its Paddy, then probably one of Harrison or Baker has to come into the fold.

Of course what will probably happen is that Clayts will start in a 3 clogger midfield.

I believe Mr Slaven made the point that by not bringing in another forward should we have an injury we would be woefully short up front, and that has now come home to roost, lets hope we can keep Paddy and Britt fit for the rest of the season, poor again from us not replacing Braithwaite.

Semantics maybe but i don't think i 100% agree with that. Yes we didn't spend as much with Southgate in the Championship than we did in the Prem, but that goes without saying doesn't it. There was still money to spend under Southgate and there was still plenty to spend under Strachan. Mowbray was the first to be tasked with selling before he could buy to clear out the squad. Karanka just cleared out the players he didn't want.

 

The cost cutting started before we were even relegated. It started because we'd accrued a huge amount of debt and certain financial institutions were putting the squeeze on. This is what lead to the ins and outs we had while still in the Premier League. 

 

After relegation we signed Danny Coyne, Mark Yeates and Leroy Lita - do you honestly believe this was because these were the players we really wanted? Southgate got the push and Strachan took over. In October we got rid of Alves and then In the January we sold Johnson for £7m. This money was used to fund the players we signed under Strachan - McDonald, Robson, Miller, Flood and Killen, which was about £5m in fees. The only 'big' earner a*** them was McDonald. McManus was a loan signing and we didn't make it permanent until the summer. Bailey joined in the summer as did Thomson for a couple of million and Boyd on a free. Pogatez, Digard, Aliadiere and Riggott were all off the books in that summer. We also sold Brad Jones to Liverpool for a couple of million as well. Killen also left. In the January we sold Wheater to Bolton and finally got O'Neil off the books.

 

The problem that we had is that the players we'd brought in were garbage or at least not much good for the most part so we couldn't sell them on for anything and this created more problems after Mowbray took over - we'd have been able to spend more if we'd been able to sell more. Of course we couldn't because Boyd came and went on a free, Robson went for nothing, we couldn't give McDonald away, same goes for Bailey, Thomson and McManus. Other than the odd sale like Bennett, we couldn't generate funds by this point really. It was only when Gibson decided to have another spin on the roulette wheel that we started spending again and this was under Mowbray the summer before he left and then carried on by Karanka when he took over. He was only able to do this because of what we'd done behind the scenes.

Rudy Gestede is out for the season broken ankle

 

So the rumours were true then it seems.  So now we have two strikers available, neither of which Pulis appears to really fancy  :frown: :nervous: