USA TOUR (PART 3)

Sunderland concluded their tour of the United States of America with a 1-0 win over Championship side Wrexham in Pennsylvania. Here's ALS writer Ben Hardie's report from the game.

We started off with a strong lineup but notable Enzo Le Fee and Wilson Isidor were absent from the squad, the former due to picking up a minor knock and the latter due to a family emergency necessitating a return to the UK early. Robin Roefs also made his first start of preseason. Wrexham had a bright opening 5-10 minutes but eventually the quality shone through and we began to dominate. There were a couple of good chances from us before Nordi Mukiele gave us the lead from the right side of the box, being assisted by some good hold up play by Brian Brobbey. Brobbey himself could have scored a bit later in the half but either didn’t make contact with it at the near post or the defender got there before him. 

At the break Dan Ballard and Romaine Mundle both came off with Jenson Seelt and Nilson Angulo both coming on in their place. We’d clearly planned for a larger set of substitutions on the hour mark, with eight players being substituted off, but around five minutes prior Mukiele had to come off with what looked like an injury (he was limping slightly). Hopefully that’s just precautionary. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last unplanned change with Simon Adingra being forced off after ‘diving’ (at least in the referee’s eyes) inside the box and then requiring treatment in second half stoppage time. Speaking of dodgy refereeing decision inside the box, earlier it had looked like Trai Hume had been felled but nothing was given. 

The last half hour was pretty much all Wrexham, understandably so as we had our under-21s and backup players out but they did really well to ward off the North Wales team. Admittedly it was uncomfortable once or twice but it never amounted to anything. Encouragingly, Anthony Patterson seemed far better at commanding his box and made a great intervention late on with one of their attackers through on goal. He certainly hasn’t harmed any bid he has to become our number two this season, especially with the homegrown player quota in the Europa League. Hydration breaks in both halves mandated a few minutes of added time in both halves, although it was booed it was probably necessary given the near 30 degrees Celsius weather in the middle of the day.

Overall though, we played well and could have easily scored more with the academy lads and second choice personnel seeing out the game. Tom Proctor, who scored against York City, was bright and so was Alan Browne. It did feel a bit like an away match at various points, with Wrexham having strong connections to Philadelphia due to their ownership. One of their owners, Rob Mac, spoke about how the Sunderland ‘Til I Die documentary had inspired him to buy Wrexham, via a prerecorded video, and apparently he likes Shipyards by The Lake Poets as it reminds him of his dad’s ship building career. Next stop France!