Match Preview: Sunderland v Brighton — The Lads Look To Return To Winning Ways At Home!
· Yahoo Sports
Tickets & Match Coverage
Tickets: Tickets are sold out.
Visit lebandit.lat for more information.
TV/Stream: Full live match coverage is unavailable.
Radio: Full live match commentary available via BBC Radio Newcastle (not online)
Don’t forget to follow the blow-by-blow account of the game on the Roker Report Twitter feed (@RokerReport) and check out the player ratings after the full-time whistle at www.RokerReport.sbnation.com!
The build-up…
Sunderland taking on Brighton is one of just two Premier League games kicking off at 3pm today on Saturday afternoon – the other being Bournemouth’s trip to Burnley. Arsenal entertain Everton and the visitors take on Chelsea at 5.30pm and West Ham take on Citeh at 8pm tonight, with all three of those games – including four on Sunday and one on Monday – all being televised.
We are one of four teams out of twenty not being televised this weekend, and they wonder why fans look to alternative methods of viewing fixtures when you see this sort of bias.
Anyway, on to the game itself and on a day when the Foundation of Light celebrates its 25th birthday, we can assume that Enzo Le Fée will also make his 50th Sunderland appearance today in what we all hope is a game that allows us to put a couple of things behind us.
Everyone is expecting a reaction to the defeat last week against Port Vale, and this includes Régis Le Bris who stated “I hope so” at his press conference on being questioned whether we’ll see one, while he also highlighted the lack of consistency we’re seeing over recent weeks.
It’s also reacting to almost six weeks since we last took three points at home. The two defeats against Liverpool and Fulham mean we need to look back to the visit of Burnley at the beginning of last month since we won on home soil.
After sitting out last week through suspension, Trai Hume and Noah Sadiki return to the fold and will likely be in the starting line-up. Brian Brobbey and Dennis Cirkin were seeing how training on Friday went first before they make a decision on their involvement, and Le Bris openly said how they were managing Xhaka’s involvement in games.
There is also the trip up the road next week that fans may take into account, but chances are Le Bris will solely be focused on going all out to collect three points this afternoon.
It’s easy to forget that Brighton have now been in the Premier League for nine successive years – which makes it all the more strange to think we’ve only taken them on once at the Stadium of Light this century. We need to go back to October 2004 when a Julio Arca opener and a Liam Lawrence penalty gave the Lads all three points in the second tier.
The meeting before that on Wearside was in 1992 at Roker Park, when Anton Rogan’s debut ended in a 4–2 win for Denis Smith’s Sunderland – with John Byrne scoring for the Seagulls that day. The point being that since this fixture on Wearside has happened twice in the last 34 years, it’s not something we see very often.
Brighton haven’t finished lower than 11th in the top flight over the last four years, which is some achievement, especially when you can throw in an FA Cup semi-final appearance in that time. This means that fans might well ask the question of what it takes to take that next step in their journey, and as they sat 5th in the table at the beginning of December, they might have thought this was the time.
Three wins in the sixteen games that have followed have dented those hopes somewhat, and they now find themselves three places and three points worse off than ourselves and questions are being asked, especially when the style of football isn’t something the manager can point to in order to help his cause.
Only four sides have a worse away record than Brighton this year, and to put it into perspective we have taken one more point having played one more game on the road. But, last time out they did travel to high-flying Brentford and beat them 2-0, so they could well travel to Wearside with a bit of confidence.
The betting…
The bookies have the Lads at 9/4 to win the game, while Brighton are priced at 6/5, and the draw is 9/4.
Head to head… at Sunderland
(All competitions)
- Sunderland wins: 11
- Draws: 4
- Brighton wins: 2
- Sunderland goals: 30
- Brightongoals: 13
Last time we met… at the Stadium of Light
Saturday 30th October 2004ChampionshipSunderland 2-0 Brighton[Arca 64’, Lawrence (pen) 82’]
Sunderland: Myhre, Wright, Breen, Caldwell, Collins, Lawrence, Robinson, Whitley (Whitehead), Arca, Elliott (Brown), Stewart (Bridges) Substitutes not used: Alnwick, Carter
Brighton: Kuipers, El-Abd (Jarrett), Harding, Cullip, Butters, Carpenter, Hammond (Hart), Oatway, Knight, Hinshelwood, Currie Substitutes not used: May, Mayo, Robinson
Attendance: 25,532
Prediction…
Sunderland 1-0 Brighton
Two sides that don’t score many goals, and the reverse fixture was a goalless draw – so I reckon we’ll nick it with the only goal of the game.