Half – Hearted Sunderland Turn Up Again

The Stadium was half empty, the fans were in no real voice, the weather was dreadful but the real worrying thing from tonight was how Sunderland now look nothing like they did six weeks ago. What has happened to the team that nearly beat Man Utd at Old Trafford, out battled Liverpool and also fought their way through to a victory against the mighty Arsenal?

Steve Bruce decided for some reason to draft back in the absolutely awful Richardson in place of Campbell in the only change of the evening. Richardson has done nothing all season (maybe scored a tap in against West Ham) to deserve a place in the centre of midfield. I would rather have played a one legged Cattermole than this excuse for a Premiership player. No creativity, no defensive ability and lost the ball in dangerous areas all night, he needs to either be shown the door or dropped for the next game as he is not good enough anymore.

Sunderland created some decent half chances but blew all this when McCartney decided to panic in the first half and gift the ball to Villa who took advanatage without any questions asked. The ball fell to Heskey as he was played onside by Nyron Nosworthy and the England forward blasted past Marton Fulop.

The night looked like it was going to get worse when Reid missed a glorious chance in the early stages of the second half as he sliced wide past Friedel’s post. Nothing dropped for Sunderland as the referee felt the heat from the home fans for some terrible decisions but he could not be blamed for the stupid dismissal of Lorik Cana in the 75th minute. Already walking a tight-rope after his awful challenge in the first half, Cana decided to dive in needlessly with two feet to take out the in form James Milner.

Milner was the one already laughing as he intercepted Richardson to fire in earlier from 25 yards to send the Villians home happy after their second win in a row on the road.

Steve Bruce has a lot of questions to ask and also answer from the fans for yet another night of dissapointment as we have now only won one in the last nine fixtures. That is sadly relegation form and if some players can not pull their finger out they need to be sold in January or we could face another long season fighting the drop zone.