If I hear one more person say: “Roy Keane's honeymoon period at Sunderland is officially over.” I'm going to scream. I guess there were always going to be draw backs to Sunderland's new found media spotlight, this time it was a case of our home guard coming in to remind us all why we were relegated in the first place.
If I ever see Danny Collins play football in our red and white shirt again it will be too soon. Time and time again he has been offered a chance to prove himself and he consistently shows himself to be a poor player.
I know we had a lot of injury problems to contend with and that may be why we came up with a performance that would have fit right in with some of our worst stuff last season. The Preston game was more or less how we played against Portsmouth at home but in reverse.
We need all of our new lads back to 100% and we need them soon, it's only now that we are seeing how truly important Keane's signings have been for our side as we missed the influence of Graham Kavanagh against a Preston midfield that ran rampant. With the below par performances of Donkey Collins and Nyron we may aswell have forgotten to bring a defence, with new signing big Varga the only one seeming to make a fist of it.
I was disappointed to see that Hysen didn't take advantage of his first team chance. Regular readers (who am I kidding?) will know that I've been advocating his place in the starting line up for a while now and it's a shame that he wasn't able to come up with a performance to cement himself in the starting line up.
So is it stick or twist for Keane? The team is beginning to show some inconsistency and regardless of injuries and despite our revival this form cannot be tolerated if we are serious about the play-offs and beyond.
I don't lay any of the blame for our defeat at Keane's door, it was our old deadwood that cost us the game. The ones that Keane has not had a chance to replace yet. And he will replace them now, you can be sure of that and about bloody time.
One option open to him is to bring Arnau into the side, he has looked impressive for the reserves and in his first few games and in my opinion it will have to be Whitehead that makes way in the middle of the park. If that is a little too drastic then it surely couldn't hurt to have him on the bench, or even play Yorke in that role.
Keane still has a number of options to play with in order to sort out a winning combination in midfield and upfront at least, even if he is stuck with our static defence for now.
Still it's hardly a disaster compared to the start of our season and building a team takes time. Remember Keane has done this much for the side in 12 hours, I for one can't wait for January. Don't expect wholesale changes for the Stoke game, it's still a case of building a winning hand, and you can bet Keane's got some cards up his sleeve yet.
FTM
Regards,
Michael
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