OTF

Which is exactly my point. That's one thing that Pardew can't be blamed for.

What are you saying? You'd rather Dummett and Williamson?

He plainly isn't a very good manager, nor an intelligent man. But is there a better feasible option out there given our current owner? The point regarding our defenders is that we should have invested in our defense (eg. Douglas) as it was an obvious weak point. The gambling man who controls the purse strings (and tbf owns the purse) isn't interested in contingencies as for him survival is an adequate result.

Hopefully this Chelsea Man city match will remind me what a game of football looks like before I head to bed.

Having to start a game like this with Williamson and a young inexperienced fullback in central defense is a pretty big liability.

He'll have get in the black and white queue once they get to the Emerald City.

The fans are the ones that will suffer from this though, not the players who apparently don't care. So it serves no one right.

Although he wasn't that bad out there in his cameo Shola should retire as a player and reinvent himself as a club mascot. As a mascot it really doesn't matter if you can't be arsed...

Pretty damn annoyed at that. I really thought if nothing else he would be running his arse off out there.

They came out like they needed it, and ended up taking it. Ironically one of the only bits of admirable football they played won it for them, even though it came from a dubious free-kick. Don't think there's any sense in analysing this match too much, except to say that as a team we don't have much collective heart.

We bottled it. Shit time to be playing a team out of form, as form matters little in an encounter like that. Shot in the arm for their season and just another typically disappointing performance from us when it seemed we were doing ok.

Fucking hell.

Dive from altidore

Shockingly some actual football is being played now.

Heart in mouth for a moment there when Krul lost it between his legs.

Have to say good endeavour from Debuchy to have made that run.

Game on bitches.

Better start in terms of our possession, but we were woefully positioned as soon as they got the ball, particularly our central players leaving theirs completely unmarked.

Having a go of it with Cisse on for Sissoko.

Would have to agree at this point. Sissoko's size and strength should be put to good effect in a game like this but he's not in the game. Anita will help to regain control of the pace of the game. Along with that either Gouffran needs to be moved to the middle, or into a front two with Remy. Alternatively he could be replaced with Cisse. Cisse will definitely be hungry for a good performance, I like that we have him on the bench.

It's no surprise that this has been a horrible game of football, but it still deserves mention. They've done well in breaking up the game into individual battles of physicality rather than a whole game of football. On top of that their shock and awe approach paid dividends early on. We've had enough ball to have settled into the game but we've never effectively managed to control the pace of the game. Part of that comes down to having central defenders who aren't particularly comfortable on the ball. Because of this Santon and Debuchy really need to increase tier involvement in playing the ball out. Santon has been ok in that regard but Debuchy was missing for the first half hour. Although Ben Arfa has had a lot of the ball he's not being very effective with it. I had hopes that having that much possession would have given him the chance for his ability to shine through but that hasn't been the case. To this end I really think that Pardew needs to change our shape up front - or at very least the positioning of our players. There can be no comparisons drawn between Sunderland and Liverpool, so with that poor half behind us we need to make changes to bring Remy and Gouffran more into the game.

Chill pill Debuchy.

Stupid prick Larsson. ..and very silly Cabaye

Difficult game for a full debut for Dummett.

Really hope so. If that's their mentality at this point then we should start to dominate once the match properly settles down.