Thursday, 12 March 2015

Match Preview: Sunderland v Aston Villa

Who are we playing?
Sunderland on Saturday 14th February at 3.00pm

Where are we playing?
Stadium of Light
Sunderland  
SR5 1SU

Can I go?
Allocation: 2,123 tickets, some left last time we checked on general sale.

Easy to get to?
Pigging miles away and the trains tend to be extortionate. Best bet is the coach for this one or drive up and do a stopover.

Can I watch it on telly?
Not officially screened in the UK so dodgy web streams and pubs with overseas satellite systems are your best bet.

Big game?
Huge.

Beating Albion twice in a week, a trip to Wembley in the offing and all the talk after the match being od#f the pitch invasion somewhat took attention away from the fact that our performance in the two games might have been Baggies-beating but was hardly world beating.

Still plenty for Tim Sherwood to do as he attempts to fashion the rabble that Paul Lambert assembled into something approaching a decent team.

Sunderland have tons of stuff going on that can weight negatively on a team struggling to survive, so it might be a good time to be playing them.

Certainly a Villa win would keep the momentum going and we remain desperate for the points. It may well be that a draw is a more realistic expectation.

Should we suffer defeat, the nerves and the bed-sheets will soon be back.


Do Sunderland have any famous fans?
Well there's Steve Cram off of the athletics and Heather Mills off of the tabloids. Some say Denise the agony aunt off of This Morning is also a Black Cats fan so she;s obviously had her fair share of suffering.

We've got heir to the throne the Duke of Cambridge.

So we win.

Alan Hutton
Who's playing for us?
Still injury niggles all over the shop but Timbo has been singing Charlie N'Zog's praises so we'd expect him to start. Remains to be seen if Big Chris can comeback after his hip thingy but we'd be disappointed if goal machine Scott Sinclair wasn't allowed to continue.

Young Jack and Alan Hutton are both suspended while Baker isn't fit whilr Senderos, the recovering Kozak and Chris Herd are long term absentees.

Who's playing for them?
Lee Cattermole has a two game ban having picked ten of the Black Cat's 70-odd yellow cards. Liam Bridcutt is his likely replacement

Any useless stats?
Of course, here you go:
  • Sunderland have beaten us 54 times while we have 80 wins. There have been 45 draws
  • Sunderland haven't beaten us since January 2011
  • Our first ever meeting was a nil-nil on Boxing Day 1890
  • Big Chris Benteke got a hat trick in famous 6-1 drubbing of The Black Cats in  Ap[ril 2013

Prediction
Going for a cheeky away three points by the odd goal.

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