We were very poor last night, the focus is understandably on the Goalkeeping Position, Matthews was poor. He wasn’t alone by any means, but obviously if a keeper has a bad game, the errors are magnified? It’s never appropriate to hang any individual out to dry, even more so when we were so poor as a team, let’s remember our goal was offside and their disallowed goal should probably have been allowed, so whilst the post match comments of “we deserved a draw” are not ridiculous, I suspect their gaffer might allude to “it should have been 3-0”

Effort…

I don’t buy into the notion of players not being arsed, obviously it can happen….Januzaj, Graham 1st time round, Grigg on occasions, all looked like they weren’t arsed, (looking like you don’t care is as bad as not caring). Rodwell is often cited as not being arsed, I have no love for him whatsoever, but he was the product of appalling mismanagement from the very top of the club. Whilst players do try, the further down the football pyramid you go, the lower the standard gets.

Confidence…

Confidence is massive in football, none more so than with keepers – just look at the Liverpool keeper on Sunday? It’s bad enough when a good keeper loses confidence, never mind when an average one does.

Quality…

We have a huge problem, I’m normally hesitant to be critical of the manager, obviously when Matthews had a shocker in pre season and Burge dropped an absolute clanger on day one, we had a different man at the helm. To be fair to Parkinson he gave Patterson some game time in the Pizza Cup, I said last week when we were at MK in the cup, it was a no brainier to play Patterson? It was a chance for him to claim the bench, and if Burge is your number 1, the bench is quite a good place to be. What really worries me about the two keepers we’ve seen so far is, they are not quality keepers making mistakes, all goalies make mistakes, it’s more a case of they are not good enough. The Liverpool keeper had a mare at the weekend, he won’t do that again – can the same be said of the lack of positional sense and decision making we’ve seen the last few weeks?

When we were briefly in the Championship, we had 3 keepers who all made mistakes and effectively relegated us….. although I see this as the exception not the rule. Most Championship clubs have 2 good keepers, most Premiership clubs have 3 good keepers – obviously only 1 can play, there’s no excuse not to have a decent keeper at any level as there’s always some quality available on loan. How often do you see a club permitted to sign an emergency loan keepers and it never seems hard to source a decent one at a few hours notice.

Patterson…

He has to play on Saturday, to be honest I’d play Postman Pat or Pat Butcher ahead of the other 2. This could be a huge opportunity for Patterson, absolutely huge… it’s Hero or Zero Time though, I think Johnson made a huge mistake by not giving him minutes in the Pizza Cup, hindsight is huge, but did anyone really think we were ok with Burge and Matthews? As I say, hopefully Patterson plays, I wish him all the luck in the world, it’s a more pressured situation than it had to be though.

Saturday…

We need to win, draws are a waste of time. Yes we have a mint stadium, yes we have the most fans….. we have played 111 games at this level, we’ve drawn just shy of 50, we’ve only spent a few weeks in the top 2. Reputation is not everything, we really need to kick on and ASAP.

Managing Sunderland…

it’s a big job, but someone is going to get it right soon enough? Big call to make Saturday Lee, for me Patterson has to start

Big game Saturday – we go again – FTM