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Sunderland Fans Verdict: A Night to Forget

Harry rounds up the fans reaction to Reading’s 3-0 defeat to Sunderland.

PA Images via Getty Images

Well that wasn’t very fun, was it? We’ve had bad games this season - most notably at Rotherham United and Sheffield United - but Wednesday night was the worst of the lot.

I just have no idea where it came from. We were all over the place from start to finish. We couldn’t pass the ball, we couldn’t keep the ball, we couldn’t defend, we couldn’t attack, we couldn’t press, we couldn’t sit in and hold shape.

The players look disorganised, tired and low on confidence - which is crazy considering our recent form and the fact they’ve just had 10 days off.

Here’s how the fans reacted to one of the worst performances in recent memory. Warning: it’s not a pretty read...

The defence

Realistically, the defenders are never going to come out of a 3-0 loss smelling of roses and popular with the fans. And they don’t deserve to be after that showing. The lack of organisation was baffling.

Andy Yiadom had his worst game in years, Tom McIntyre and Tom Holmes really, really struggled and we looked like conceding every time Sunderland went forward.

The fans were fuming with the defending, and rightly so...

The midfield

Yes, a lot of the blame lies on the defence, of course it does. But the guys in front of them didn’t do them any favours.

Individually they were all really poor, particularly Mamadou Loum - who got dragged off at half time - and Jeff Hendrick - who has failed to make any kind of impression so far. But the most worrying thing was the collective performance. They struggled to string two passes together, lost so many 50/50s and allowed their opposite numbers to carve through them at ease.

The fans were certainly not impressed with what they saw...

When it rains, it pours

The most frustrating thing at the moment for me, and for most of the fans judging by the tweets below, is that when it rains, it absolutely pours.

When it’s good, it’s great, but when they perform like they did against Sunderland, we could get steam rolled by any team in this division. Honestly we are the most Jekyll and Hyde team I’ve ever seen at the moment.

I mean, I’d rather be inconsistent than consistently bad, but that doesn’t make watching performances like that any easier or more enjoyable...

Conclusion

I can’t take many more performances like that one. There were no positives from to take from that performance. Not a single one. Yes we’re still fourth and Yakou Meite is back etc etc. But in terms of the performance, I can’t think of one single good thing or moment. It was that bad.

Luckily, we’ve been quite good at reacting to bad performances so far this season - my God do we need to see that again on Saturday.

URZ