Gav offers his post-match thoughts as Sunderland wrapped up their pre-season schedule against the Spanish visitors!
Timur takes his chance
I’m not saying for one second that I think Timur Tutierov should be playing in the Premier League for Sunderland next season, but he’s got me talking about him having made two very impressive cameos in both of this weekend’s games for the first team, and that’s all you can ask for from the lad.
I actually reckon he’ll get himself a decent loan somewhere, and given how hard he works, I’d back him to do well.
If it wasn’t for Jarred Gillett being typically useless, we’d have been awarded a penalty for a blatant shirt pull on Timur, but the fact he created that opportunity was all on him as he was persistent with his running and broke into the box at a time when the game was all but over as a contest and most other players probably wouldn’t have bothered.
Hats off, young man — and well done for doing your best.
Good to see several Lads players back!
Those were Chris Rigg’s first minutes of pre-season (and, at times, it showed) whilst we saw the return of Anthony Patterson (last seen versus South Shields) and Wilson Isidor (last season against Sevilla).
We’re going to need these lads fit and up to speed as soon as possible as they’ll be needed in the matchday squad as options off the bench, so it was good to see them back in action, even if they didn’t all play amazingly well.
£20 per ticket…are you having a laugh?
When I realised that this would be effectively a second string game, and I saw the price of the tickets, I was immediately put off. There’s no way I’m paying twenty quid to watch a pre-season game where all the players are Lads we don’t consider part of the starting eleven for the West Ham game, and it seems that many other fans had the same idea.
The crowd was poor, which was expected, but would it not have made sense to make the tickets cheaper and get more people through the doors?
I’m sure that there’s sound logic behind such decisions but it didn’t make much sense to me.
A disappointing reaction in some quarters
I don’t understand how anyone can get so vexed by a pre-season performance, never mind one where it was clearly a patchwork side made up with lads who mostly will not play a lot of football this season, but one look at social media showed that there are indeed fans that get irritated even by these results.
It means nothing, man. Get over it. Hopefully people do — and quickly — cos I know I already have.
Category: General Sports
