As we attempted to get back into our stride, we nipped across the Pennines to Pie City, AKA Wigan, and, despite taking the lead just after the half hour, looked defensively shaky at set pieces and were pegged back just before the break. Awful marking allowed Wigan to score the crucial second, and we’d lost two in a row to make automatic promotion wishful thinking. In our own hands? I’d rather it was in someone else’s – which it is now. I apologise in advance for massive gaps in the following assessment of the evening’s work, as the internet was playing silly buggers and simply refused to allow me to watch only a series of two minute excerpts interspersed with either a frozen screen or the video feed running at treble speed to catch up while the commentary, when it worked, being frequently several minutes out of synch with the picture.
The thing about this season’s crowded fixture list is that, in the event of something going wrong (like Saturday’s reversal), you get the chance to put things right pretty quickly. The coming week was always going to be a bit of a season-definer, with the three away games including one against league leaders Hull, one against in-form Blackpool, and tonight’s against Wigan, who whupped Donny’s ass at the weekend. Having just about admitted that he’d got Saturday’s starting eleven wrong, Lee Johnson shuffled his pack again, opting for pace in the form of Jones, Diamond, and Hume and basically starting with three wingers and an overlapping fullback. Very interesting – trying to work out exactly who would be playing where at the pointy end of the field, that is.
Burge
McLaughlin Sanderson O’Nien Hume
Power Scowen
Jones McGeady Diamond
Wyke
And the usual strong bench, this time featuring Matthews, Gooch, O’Brien, Wright (whoopee!), Leadbitter, McFadzean, and Stewart. There was still no sign of Maguire, but a more than welcome return of Bailey Wright to the squad, meaning that for the first time in weeks we’ve got a genuine central defender on the bench as well as three defenders on the field. Which was just as well, as McLaughlin twanged something in the warm-up, and Wright started alongside Sanderson with O’Nien switching to right back.
With the internet connection at Sobs Towers (and other parts of the Sunderland-supporting world. apparently) currently being slightly dodgier than a Harry Redknapp transfer deal, the game was three minutes old before my picture popped up and we were kicking left to right in our normal strip and Lee Burge was saving a header from a Wigan corner. The Wigan left-back area was in sunshine while the rest of the pitch was in the shadow of the stands, despite the picture freezing while the commentary ran on and Burge made another save – apparently. We won a throw ten yards into their half, although the picture was showing something that happened earlier in the game and then went silent with the clock on 5:44.
We won a corner on ten minutes, on the right, which Sanderson headed back in but was met by a Wigan head and cleared and we’d apparently started to get on top without troubling their keeper. All of a sudden it was thirteen minutes and another corner on the right, with the commentators telling me that O’Nien had taken a bang to the face shortly before. On the quarter hour, a Jones free kick on the right of the box found Geads, and his low shot was tipped round the post for another corner on the right. We got to that at the back post, but headed it wide as we pressed the home side back.
There was a Wigan attack down the right, which Hume slid in to break up and they had to start again, with Diamond breaking that one up near halfway by putting it out for a throw. There then followed a spell of fast-forward action as the internet sought to make play catch up with real time – and failing miserably. We worked our way up the right wing via a throw in, but Wigan cleared the cross and then had a little spell of possession in our half and forcing some defending when they cut the ball back from the by-line on the right. A foul out on their right brought a deep cross which was headed back from the back post but when the shot, they shot high. From Burge’s goal kick, we broke down the right and won a free between the box and the line. Jones swung it to the back post, where two defenders managed to head it away for a throw. After another period of frozen screen, things came back to life just after the half hour. O’Nien was fouled on the right and the ball found its way to Geads in the inside right position, and he curled a perfect pass through the defence for Wyke at the back post to side-foot home from a few yards out. For some reason, Wigan had allowed Chas the freedom of the field and he had acres of space from which to score his umpteenth one-touch goal of the season. Have they not been paying attention?
Wigan put together an attack that ended with the weakest of headers into Burge’s arms a few minutes later, and we got the ball up the left side of the field again. A run and shot forced Burge down to his right to tip it away for a corner, but when that came in it was headed down then hard and low back across for Keane to take a touch then hook it in from a couple of yards. Only a couple of minutes to the break, so that was a bit of a blow to say the least, and we were grateful a minute later when a good Wigan chance on the penalty spot was hit into the ground rather than the net.
It was level at the break, and with the patchy coverage I can’t really say whether that was a fair scoreline or not. The bits I’d managed to see showed us putting some decent stuff together, but I couldn’t say if we needed to change anything or not. Stats showed that possession had been exactly 52/548 in our favour, and that we’d hit two shots on target while Wigan had done it four times (depending on which website you look at), but we’d had six corners to their two four fouls to Wigan’s fifteen. I suppose that explains why they’d had a yellow and we hadn’t.
An injury early in the second half gave us a quick break, after which Geads had to come back to defend and dribbled his way out of trouble – effective, but that sort of thing always makes me nervous. A cross from the right was knocked behind for another corner on that side, our first of the half. Although we won it on the edge, the header lacked direction and was picked up by Wigan. A Power shot took a deflection and went for a corner on the left, which we took quickly with Diamond and Hume both getting crosses in but Wigan dealing with them both. Sanderson took a bang on the head in the middle of our own half, so it was yet another free kick in our favour which Dion took himself.
On 58 minutes, and back down at our end, Hume had to put a toe in to concede a corner as Wigan broke having fended off another Jones run at them. The cross was headed to the back post, where nobody had picked up Lang and he banged it in. Despite Wright’s presence, and my insistence that he’s our defensive organiser, there was precious organisation at the back there. Another lengthy break in transmission ended with 79 minutes gone, and Gooch, Leadbitter, McFadzean, and Stewart were on for Power, Hume, Jones, and Diamond. They’d been there since 63 minutes, according to the information that arrived with the rebirth of the internet connection, but I only got three minutes of action, which included a Wigan effort wide of the post after O’Nien couldn’t prevent the shot getting past him – on the left of our defence for some reason and Stewart doing well to win the ball near the corner flag only for Geads to be dispossessed after he took the big fella’s pass to the edge of the box, before things froze and went silent again. Had Luke gone to the left of central defence with Sanderson as right back? That’s what it looked like.
On 85 minutes, we won a corner but when Stewart took it short to Geads, we couldn’t make anything of it. We were pressing forward at every opportunity, but Wigan were denying us the space to create any clear-cut chances. Sanderson got on the end of a cross from the left, but his back-post header was wide of the mark. A dodgy header by O’9 put us under pressure, and Wigan were awarded a free kick a few yards outside our box. They didn’t score, and I know that ‘cos I checked BBC sport, which also told me that four added minutes were being played, then six added minutes, and that we’d had 55% possession but still only the two shots on target. Then it was all over, and the week that I thought might define our season had got off to a bad start to follow a bad weekend. Defensively we were ragged, and although we managed nineteen shots, only on went in and only one other actually troubled the Wigan keeper, who’ll struggle to have a more comfortable evening.
After the initial settling-in period, we’d been the dominant force until we scored, whereupon our defence became disorganised and didn’t pick up the eventual scorers. O’Nien picked up a second-half yellow, just to add another negative dimension to the evening.
Man of the Match? I’ve no idea, as I didn’t get to see more than five consecutive minutes of football. I hate to say it, but this is shaping up to be a typical Sunderland season… and by that, I mean Charlton in the Play-offs.
Here is a photo of when we made Say No To Racism T'shirts to raise awareness of racism in football and had current players model the shirt. Photo taken by Adam Batey.
