disgrace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well said Banjo – its not down to Mike Dean

If you want to know what the issues were / are – here are just a few

Bad team selection
Poor team performance
Players not good enough
No desire
No fight
Poor defending

I’ll add my two-penn’orth about this.

I’ve got a nasty attack of man flu at the moment (I know – terrible it is) so decided against going to the game yesterday and watched online. The best reliable stream I could get was with a Spanish commentary so I stuck with that.

The relevance of that trivia is that I watched it not surrounded by people leaping up giving their opinions, and not listening to commentators’ views. No matter what we may think of ourselves formulating opinions we are greatly influenced by others around us.

And I didn’t see an atrocious referee performance. Yes – on seeing the replays the free-kick leading to their goal didn’t appear correct – but it wasn’t so bizarre as some decicions we have seen. Even if we concede a free kick you have to say it was a well-taken goal.

We lost because we faff about in midfield. We were building all very pretty stuff, a joy to behold, in the first two thirds, but any nearer goal we go to pieces. We lost due to our own inability to score or to defend. If points were given for passes completed we would be in the Champions League. But they’re not and we aren’t.

Blame the referee as much as you like – I blame the players.

Couple of things i would like to mention as a sunderland fan following on from your comments above.

Firstly, you are a better team than your league position suggests and i think you will stop up this season again which is a remarkable achievement considering the size of your club.
Although Martinez has you playing nice football, you are clearly lacking goals and an experienced stand out defender to organise a chaotic back line.

Personally i have never seen the point in Wigan been in the premiership due to the fact that you are a rugby town with little support, but credit given where its due Dave Whealan has worked wonders getting you to the premiership and keeping you here for so long.

To last night, The first half saw you dominate the play with 2 chances hitting the post early on, which had any gone in would have probably led to you winning the game. Fortunately it never. Then, on the stroke of half time, the freekick which led to the opener, a dubious decision which in my opinion was not a freekick (maybe a bit retribution for moses dive at the sol!) From here we had got our noses in front at the best possible time. You pressured again at the start of the 2nd half but for defensive lapses and some clincal finishing on our part we killed off the game. Overall wigan deserved at least a point out of the game, though it could be argued we deserved all 3 against you at the sol. swings and roundabouts.

Anyways someone commented saying we were the worst team they had seen, well take into account we have a makeshift backline, a goalkeeper with half his face out of place, and a team who played 48 hours earlier against the league leaders and we still have enough character and energy to go away from home and win 4-1 cant make us that bad a team.

For the record, I am tipping bolton,blackburn and qpr to go down this season so good luck with the rest of your campaign and i hope you hold onto Martinez as he is a good manager with the right philosphy!

Have you ever trotted a stick float in the fast runs on the River Wear?

I may disagree with you on several levels, but I believe you Sir are 100% correct with your diagnosis (of the game, not man-flu!!!)[/quote]

Although I don’t believe the brylcreem boy to be correct in anything……….I do believe Mr Garswood that you make some valid points in what you say, however,…

I would have changed the “faff” to “faffed” because generally – in the past few games prior to this one – we didn’t Faff. It was down to, in my opinion, team tinkering. I know Martinez has come and said ‘a game too far’ etc, he had ample opportunity of resting senior players at the Swindon Game. Not starting Momo and Moses was naive to say the least. Ben Watson was the most culpable of faffing in midfield as he did not run at the opposition with the ball preferring, instead to hold the ball up, thus slowing the game and halting any attacking wing play….other players did not seem confident that any run made would be met by a ‘cutting’ pass – however, with Momo attacking in midfield, last third play was always inevitable. Albert, and I do rate him, did bring a bit of pace on the wing but lacked that ‘game’ experience to be confident on the ball. Had Momo and Moses started, I believe there would have been more chances that could have been taken by more confident players and had we stuck a couple away then give Watson and Crusat 20 mins game time at the end if rest was indeed needed.

Hey ho!…..onwards and upwards eh!

I would rather be in some sort of relegation battle season in season out than be in limbo lurking around mid table as its more exciting ! Sunderland will never get into Europe again as long as you have a hole in your (Black) Cat’s bottom ! Just short of 40 yrs without a major trophy is a massive underachievement for such a big club wouldn’t you say ! You did however hold that 15 point Prem record for a while which despite our minuscule size, we will never achieve !! The thing is we accept our ” Little Wigan ” status whereas you lot will forever be in the shadow of that bigger club just up the road and you cant see it !!