The team that should never be, Franchise FC aka Milton Keynes Dons, came to Wearside and on a bright and calm afternoon, simply took advantage of our innate ability to lose the ball in the centre circle, and the immobility of our central defence. In truth, we gifted them four chances in similar circumstances, and they took two of them.
With former Lad and integral part of Poyet’s Greatest Escape of 2014 - aye EIGHT years ago - Connor Wickham, in the squad, we could be excused for feeling nervous in the run up to the game, what with the exact ownership of shares being revealed a year late amid claims and counter claims about who actually runs things. And a new manager, and the departure of Bally, since our last home game – and I’ve probably missed a few things. All of that chat brought Wild Bill Storey back out of the shadows, waving a can of fizzy pop, and with a claim of his own that he’s going to try and buy us again. Oh well, we are Sunderland, after all, and a quiet week just isn’t on the agenda at SAFC.
The Tree wisely chose to feature 101 feel good hits of the 70s rather than West Ham, then we were off, dissecting the events of the past ten days as we went.
Smaller queues than usual outside the East stand hinted at a smaller crowd, but there were a fair few in at kick-off, as we attacked the North Stand.
Patterson
Winchester Wright Doyle Cirkin
Evans
Neil Matete
Dajaku Pritchard
Stewart
Initially, our passing across the back was crisper and quicker than of late, but Wright's utter refusal to look forward, coupled with Evans being of the same mind, soon meant that we were on the back foot.
Only 6 minutes in Evans attempted a ridiculous back pass that needed Patto to be at his sharpest to concede a corner, and we were being caught out with ball over the top on both sides far too easily. Having said that, neither side could fashion a shot until 22 minutes, and that only counts because we put it way wide for a goal kick.
Evans got a yellow soon after that for a trip once play had broken down, and we had to thank Patto on the half hour after yet another lob over the top meant action for our keeper.
The single added minute was probably a token gesture, as there'd been nowt of note from either side to make us want more of what we'd seen in the preceding 45. No goals at the break was hardly a surprise given the paucity of shots from either side.
There were no changes for the second half when we clearly needed something other than the manager's boot up a few arses.
Early on, Stewart was onto a ball down the right but his low cross (no point in owt else) was a foot in front of Pritch sliding in at the back post.
What looked like a foul on Matete two minutes later in the the centre circle was missed, the ball was played between our static entre halves, and it was 0-1 thanks to a low finish.
Pritchard's free from inside left on 50 minutes caused chaos in the box, but Dajaku somehow put the loose ball over the top from a couple of yards out - even Danny Graham would have buried that one. Mebbe.
On 55 Embo and Clarke came on for Dajaku and Neil, but the next action was some awful play-acting by MKD in the centre circle, pretending to have been poked/nipped/bitten/whatever by the prone Matete. When we got the free out to the right, Embo's left-footed cross was met by Stewart's downward header at the near post and that levelled things on 59 minutes. Here we go, let's finish the job. Aye, right.
There had been more positive stuff from Evans since the break, but he was still prone to sideways and backwards when we had men free in front of him.
On 71 Matete was a yard wide from distance after good play by Cirkin, Pritch, and Clarke on our left, then on came Wickham. Oh dear, what could possibly go wrong.
You've guessed it - four minutes later, another ball loss in the middle, this time by Matete, and there was a carbon copy second for the visitors - by Wickham, as you'd expect. We were the architects of our own downfall once again.
Evans was off and Roberts on soon after, and no matter how often we got it to Clarke on the left, there was never a cross good enough for Stewart to profit from. We can moan all we want about MKD's time-wasting, but we basically shot ourselves in the foot (taking several attempts, obviously). Where once we'd been too attacking under Johnson, making ourselves more solid under Neil has taken away any forward momentum that we had.
There were four added minutes in which we gave the opposition yet another chance, which they spurned, and then it was all over.
Man of the Match? Had it not been for the two concessions of possession, it'd have been Matete, but with those two aberrations in mind I'll give it to Pritch as he, despite being too far wide for most of the game, looked the man most likely to.
