I don't think this sort of capitulation happens with Travis on the pitch.

Wheels have come off.

Bugger. Shocking from Tronstad. Too busy marking space rather than his man. Going to be a tough old 40 mins or so now.

I I don't disagree with you but I "think" the law was changed so that if the ball deflected inadvertently of a defender it didn't count. Maybe one of our resident laws experts can confirm.

I've been trying but he's done his more usual disappearing act today.

Whoosh

We just dropped off in the last 20 minutes of the first half. Thought we looked a lot better going more direct with more pace rather than when we try to play it out from the back.

Come on - Dolan's been brilliant.

Dolan was stood in an offside position but the ball ricocheted off a Sunderland player last. Does it not have to be an intentional action from the defender these days?

Dolan's been on absolute fire so far. Don't disagree about Hedges. Great start from the team.

That's more like it -that's the spirit! Thought you were unwell for a moment or two. Lol.

Flipping Heck Paul - are you infused with festive cheer? All the best to you and everyone.

Disagree completely, unless the player in question is good enough to actually score on a regular basis when cutting inside then it neutralises them completely. It's relatively easy to defend when all the play is in front of you.

Very disappointing to see Hedges in in place of Duberry. If we win of course though, it's a stroke of genius from the manager. We'll have to see what happens.

That was when Henning Berg came to the touchline just before half time to demonstrate with Souness he'd got his tactics totally wrong wasn't it?

I'd rather have a striker who knows where the back of the net is rather than one who doesn't. We have two of those already.

Not sure what Corberan has done to warrant interest from Valencia or anywhere else. He's hardly pulled up any trees at the Baggies and they sit behind us in the table with a much better squad. Does he play football "the right way" or something? He was also Waggott's initial choice before JDT was appointed wasn't he?

I'm not rewriting history at all, as per usual you are deliberately ignoring what I posted. I did say I was exaggerating to prove a point. You are an incredibly strange person. The only semi realistic shot at getting rid of the owners in the short to medium term is probably to somehow scrape up via the play offs then retain Premiership status for a couple of seasons to put the Club back on a sounder financial footing to make us more attractive to would be suitors. Given your stance on the owners I'd have thought you'd be all over that possibility but instead you dont want to contemplate it (however unlikely) because you're worried about being embarrassed over losing one game to Burnley.

Travis missing is a huge blow but it's for circumstances like this that Baker was brought in so we'll have to hope he proves a passable replacement. Guess we'll now see if Tronstad is as good as everyone reckons he is without Travis to do all the work for him. Let's hope he is. On the game itself it seems looking in from the outside that Sunderland aren't playing quite as well as they were earlier in the season but they've come from behind late on to nick victories a few times recently so they seem to be resolute. Could be a very attritional grind on Boxing Day. Hoping we come out the right side. 1-0 Rovers. Goal off Gueye's backside.

I can't believe anyone would prefer not to go up but beat Burnley in the reverse fixture as opposed to going up but losing say 0-4 against our 6 fingered neighbours. Anyway, after the Millwall defeat , we're still one point ahead of my points "schedule" currently but that may be put sorely to the test now in light of Travis's injury.

Think we were linked with him in previous windows so any interest is probably genuine but If we're looking for someone to fire a few goals to boost our promotion chances I'm not convinced he's the man. His stats look remarkably Gallagher like in that he's only reached double figures once since 2017. Expensive and unprolific imo albeit from memory he's fairly nasty on the pitch and a bit of a handful etc. Surely we could do better.

Is Mcburnie even that good?

A stark reminder of how well Eustace has been doing recently, we looked a really poor side today which is probably what we are when you come down to it. The front 4 that started might have raised a few eyebrows but I think we went even worse when the subs were made. Poor defending for the goal as well. Both CH's went AWOL leaving two of theirs free in front of goal. We are resolute now though under Eustace if nothing else so you can't see us being on the wrong side of many heavy beatings if any.

Duberry should have done a lot better there. Forgot to take the ball with him at the last minute. Should have shot or played Gueye in.

It wasn't. Took a bad third touch off his thigh.