Before
We've got to win tonight to give us all a glimmer of hope as we can see that this season is heading for a repeat of the last couple and we badly need an upper before the visit of Man City on Sunday. Newcastle's big win on Sunday did little to soothe my fevered brow and City's demolition of Liverpool last night continued the feeling of negativity. I was pleased to hear that Reid is likely to get a game and I'd been alarmed to hear the rumours of him possibly leaving us as he's the kind of creative player we badly need. Games like this are often tricky but I think we'll win and I'm going for 3-1.

The Match
There were a number of changes to Saturday's starting line-up but it was a strong side with Bent being accompanied by Welbeck upfront and both Turner and Cattermole returning as expected. I fancied Welbeck to get a goal. I'd been given a couple of website addresses that showed free live football but having failed to get them running I reverted to Radio Newcastle. We got two corners in the first ten minutes and, thanks to Zenden, they actually reached their targets while a few minutes later another good cross by him was headed just over by Bent. After twenty minutes his best pass yet found Bent who improved on his earlier effort and headed us into the lead. I'm really glad we gave him another year's contract as whenever he comes on, and Saturday was a good example, he gives us a buzz. We slackened off somewhat and allowed Colchester to mount several decent attacks but the Zenden-Bent combo paid off again and thanks to some dodgy goalkeeping by Cousins we were 2-0 up about ten minutes before the break. Wordsworth's header was very well saved by Mignolet and let's hope it gives him a bit of confidence to face much bigger guns on Sunday. Anyway, it was 2-0 at the break and a case of so far, so good. Colchester had made a fight of it, winning five corners so their 120 travelling fans had had something to cheer about.

There were no changes as we kicked off again and the first action was another good Mignolet save from a Wordsworth header. The fact that Wordsworth was winning these headers was rather alarming. Colchester dominated the first fifteen minutes and Mignolet had to make another very good save, this time from Perkins. I was glad to hear that Reid and Waghorn were warming up as we were getting nowhere in finishing the game off and they soon came on for Zenden and Welbeck. The crowd of less than 14,000 made a big racket, probably mainly to welcome Reidy back. I switched over to Real Radio as Radio Newcastle kept cutting out and Gary Rowell was probably being generous when he said that we were playing well within ourselves. With fifteen minutes to go Waghorn smashed a great shot against the bar and having gone close on Saturday with his first touch I'm confident that he'll be scoring a few for us soon. There wasn't much else to report for the rest of a disappointing half, apart from Colback coming on for Bent, and it ended 2-0.

Though this was by no means a great Sunderland performance, there were a number of positives to take from the game in that several returning players had a good workout, Mignolet's confidence was boosted after a couple of shaky performances and we didn't concede a goal or sustain an injury. Cup games against sides from lower leagues are accidents waiting to happen but we got through and now await an interesting match, preferably at home, in the next round.

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