HEARTS REVIEW

Sunderland were battered in Edinburgh, losing 3-0 to Hearts. The performance was lethargic and there’s very few positives to take from it. A complete switch from our performances in Portugal less than a week ago.

Aside from Neil starting ahead of Diarra and Reinildo not featuring yet, it was virtually our strongest available XI. Except maybe Patterson, I’m not exactly sure why he hasn’t been playing. The lineup was as follows: Moore, Ballard, Seelt, Huggins, Hume, Neil, Le Fee, Sadiki, Talbi, Mayenda, Adingra.

The first half was incredibly stop-start, with a number of players receiving treatment from some pretty strong challenges, Hearts having a desire to play a more physical game. Within the first 20 seconds there was a stoppage as Craig Gordon was subbed off due to him being injured but wanting to at least get on the pitch for his own testimonial.

After this, the first five or so minutes looked alright from a Sunderland perspective. All that resulted was a half chance from Hume that didn’t trouble the goalkeeper. Hearts then took the lead a few moments later with a cross that really should have been dealt with better, their striker will probably never score an easier header against top flight opposition. The game then settled into a bit of a slog to watch, we never really strung more than a few passes together and we certainly didn’t do it at any pace. The home team had a few half chances that didn’t cause any real bother.

Overall though, it wasn’t our finest time of things, with Dan Neil struggling in particular and Huggins not having an easy time of things either. Mayenda lacked any quality service and Talbi was essentially anonymous. Sadiki went down injured and he was subbed off for Diarra, that was initially quite concerning but he warmed up during the break and was subbed back on for Neil about halfway through the second half. Diarra himself had to come off briefly, with Heart of Midlothian not exactly pulling their punches.

Unlike in our previous preseason games, we kept the team who had played in the first half on for the second. Unfortunately they continued to play at a slow pace, compare to our opponents who looked a yard on it. In fairness, competitive football has resumed tor them already and this was their final runout before the league season starts. Still, it was night and day compared to how we played in Portugal against better teams on paper. Le Fee did almost equalise for us though, striking a free kick on the edge of the box that went just wide. Near the hour mark there was a big mixup at the back, Seelt and Huggins tripped each other up and  allowed an attacker through on goal, Ballard saved the day luckily.

Unfortunately a minute later it was 2-0, a deflected effort finding the target. We then made eight substitutions with twenty minutes remaining, with Diarra, Sadiki and Moore the only survivors and then we actually picked up the pace a little bit. Aleksic, who has been (fairly) criticised recently put a great ball into the box but Abdullahi wasn’t quite there to meet it and in general the Serbian looked good. With five minutes left though, Sadiki gave the ball away in the final third and Hearts capitalised, 3-0 to the hosts. When you’ve got a defence made of academy players and mostly out of position, a mistake was bound to happen at some point.

I think this highlights that we’ve still got work to do in the transfer market, we need a striker, one if not two centre backs and a goalkeeper. It is only preseason and hopefully we come out stronger versus Hull. The results don’t matter at this stage but I’d like to see us string a few more passes together and play quicker.