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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA 20:50 - Dec 3 with 1397 viewsBellevue_Blue

Well drilled, exciting, full of real athletes able to cover loads of ground with real aerial quality in both boxes.

I understand we were in a different position but I'd be fascinated to understand what our leaders think of their success on the recruitment side but also the tactical side.
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 21:12 - Dec 3 with 1285 viewsjontysnut

I'm a fan of tempo in any sport. Nothing as miserable than watching plodding old England ( sideways and backwards), plodding old England Rugby (box kicks and territory) and, er, plodding Ipswich. Both Englands have started moving the ball more quickly and upping the pace. We have the players to do it. It is coachable. KM could learn something from their approach.
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 21:48 - Dec 3 with 1153 viewsgainsboroughblue

Both them and Leeds winning.

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 21:48 - Dec 3 with 1147 viewsDenny32

It's sickening to see how they are adapting so well. In every game they make it look like its the other team have come up no excuses like. Players getting to know each other..or takes time to gel ..
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 21:52 - Dec 3 with 1095 viewsstickymockwell

Its just like a re run of us in 2000/01! And we beat Liverpool 1 nil at Anfield. Both promoted via the playoffs too.

Give him a ball and a yard of grass
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:05 - Dec 3 with 1027 viewsSwansea_Blue

All three of us bottom clubs last year were making lots of excuses about the gap in quality to the PL. In hindsight and looking where we all are this year, plus how Sunderland have managed (although less so Leeds and Burnley), it looks like we all just got it wrong. Making the jump is difficult, but still doable if you get all things lined up. We got recruitment wrong and the jury’s out on whether KM has what it takes.

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:13 - Dec 3 with 988 viewsJoey_Joe_Joe_Junior

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:05 - Dec 3 by Swansea_Blue

All three of us bottom clubs last year were making lots of excuses about the gap in quality to the PL. In hindsight and looking where we all are this year, plus how Sunderland have managed (although less so Leeds and Burnley), it looks like we all just got it wrong. Making the jump is difficult, but still doable if you get all things lined up. We got recruitment wrong and the jury’s out on whether KM has what it takes.


That was obvious ages ago, too many excuses thrown around last year about what we could and could not get done for that level of spend.

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:14 - Dec 3 with 974 viewsSmoresy

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:05 - Dec 3 by Swansea_Blue

All three of us bottom clubs last year were making lots of excuses about the gap in quality to the PL. In hindsight and looking where we all are this year, plus how Sunderland have managed (although less so Leeds and Burnley), it looks like we all just got it wrong. Making the jump is difficult, but still doable if you get all things lined up. We got recruitment wrong and the jury’s out on whether KM has what it takes.


I don't think we did get the gap wrong fwiw. For me, returning to watch Championship football has been further confirmation of how big the gap is.
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:18 - Dec 3 with 940 viewsTRUE_BLUE123

Recruitment Recruitment Recruitment

We are not good at it and if we want to progress as a club we need to improve. Massively.

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:23 - Dec 3 with 899 viewsSwansea_Blue

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:14 - Dec 3 by Smoresy

I don't think we did get the gap wrong fwiw. For me, returning to watch Championship football has been further confirmation of how big the gap is.


I was thinking that because we’re struggling in a very poor league this year, that shows how unsuited this squad was to take on the PL. so we got the recruitment very wrong (or maybe it’s the coaching or both). OK, we lost a few players, but even with Hutch and Delap that only papers over the cracks. The bulk of the last year’s team were nowhere near up to PL level. Haven’t Sunderland pretty much replaced their whole side? That can be seen as an example of what successful recruitment looks like (so far!).

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:25 - Dec 3 with 888 viewsNthQldITFC

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 21:12 - Dec 3 by jontysnut

I'm a fan of tempo in any sport. Nothing as miserable than watching plodding old England ( sideways and backwards), plodding old England Rugby (box kicks and territory) and, er, plodding Ipswich. Both Englands have started moving the ball more quickly and upping the pace. We have the players to do it. It is coachable. KM could learn something from their approach.


Competitive tap dancing has a smashing tempo.

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:35 - Dec 3 with 836 viewsSmoresy

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:23 - Dec 3 by Swansea_Blue

I was thinking that because we’re struggling in a very poor league this year, that shows how unsuited this squad was to take on the PL. so we got the recruitment very wrong (or maybe it’s the coaching or both). OK, we lost a few players, but even with Hutch and Delap that only papers over the cracks. The bulk of the last year’s team were nowhere near up to PL level. Haven’t Sunderland pretty much replaced their whole side? That can be seen as an example of what successful recruitment looks like (so far!).


Yeah that's my take, absolutely recruitment and possibly both. We have plenty in the squad who've been great at this level before. We only have a 40 year old who's been good at the level above.

Sunderland is new team plus Ballard, Isidor, Hume, a bit of Mayenda and Rigg, tiny snippet of O'Nein, to my knowledge. Oh and Le Fee if you count his loan signing last January, which came with a £20m mandatory purchase on promotion. Nobody else from the promotion squad gets a sniff I think.
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 23:11 - Dec 3 with 714 viewsFromReuserWithLove

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:13 - Dec 3 by Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior

That was obvious ages ago, too many excuses thrown around last year about what we could and could not get done for that level of spend.


We put so much emphasis on our deficiencies last season and so far this season, explaining in great depth why it would be impossible to compete, why it will be so hard to go back up etc etc. the narrative over the past couple od summers has been so defeatist that the team has lost its swagger. We play with fear and reluctance.
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 23:18 - Dec 3 with 674 viewsJoey_Joe_Joe_Junior

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 23:11 - Dec 3 by FromReuserWithLove

We put so much emphasis on our deficiencies last season and so far this season, explaining in great depth why it would be impossible to compete, why it will be so hard to go back up etc etc. the narrative over the past couple od summers has been so defeatist that the team has lost its swagger. We play with fear and reluctance.


Seems that a lot of the fanbase are now realizing or at least acknowledging a lot the short comings since promotion and some big calls we clearly got very wrong.

Some people are brushing it aside for various reasons or attacking those that bring it up (some of us have been for a while) but when a club has been in doldrums for decades we really needed to get more of it right than we have. Ashton's own words when h was walking around the pitch in summer 2024, is it's more important to get the big money deals right. Of course they won't all work but the hit rate was poor for the cash invested IMO. As was some of the strategy.

I was surprised how many people were labelling the recruitment generally fine etc, not to call out people but that was the consensus from this board to podcasts, it really wasn't very good.

This year promotion was so important in a very poor league, I fear next year we might be in a worse position to make ago of it for a few reasons. I still think we should be all in this January to try and make it happen, we can figure out the rest later.
[Post edited 3 Dec 23:21]

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 00:24 - Dec 4 with 543 viewsChurchman

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 21:48 - Dec 3 by Denny32

It's sickening to see how they are adapting so well. In every game they make it look like its the other team have come up no excuses like. Players getting to know each other..or takes time to gel ..


Why the jealously? Why not be pleased for them?
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 05:45 - Dec 4 with 406 viewsITFCSG

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:13 - Dec 3 by Joey_Joe_Joe_Junior

That was obvious ages ago, too many excuses thrown around last year about what we could and could not get done for that level of spend.


I brought up the same exact points last season and was attacked for it

“Unsurmountable gap”
“Not in the Prem for 20+ years”
“PL level players don’t want to join a newly promoted club”
blablabla

Best of all

“Relegation, we will come back in a better position to challenge in the PL”

Now the same lot of people are happily defending McK, MA & Co for massively underperforming in the Championship

How pathetic
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 07:39 - Dec 4 with 284 viewsandytown

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:35 - Dec 3 by Smoresy

Yeah that's my take, absolutely recruitment and possibly both. We have plenty in the squad who've been great at this level before. We only have a 40 year old who's been good at the level above.

Sunderland is new team plus Ballard, Isidor, Hume, a bit of Mayenda and Rigg, tiny snippet of O'Nein, to my knowledge. Oh and Le Fee if you count his loan signing last January, which came with a £20m mandatory purchase on promotion. Nobody else from the promotion squad gets a sniff I think.


Heard on radio yesterday that they may lose 7 players for the AFCON. Don’t know how many of those are first teamers. The championship squad players might get some time yet!
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 11:17 - Dec 4 with 142 viewsWestSussexBlue

I hold my hands up, they look like they’ve adapted very well indeed. I had them down as relegation certainties along with Leeds and Burnley. Fair play to them. I’d like to know what the pundits think having gate crashed the elite set.
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 11:30 - Dec 4 with 105 viewsTractorJack

It's very simple, they set up a good recruitment department a number of years before getting promoted. We're still trying to catch up.
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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 11:45 - Dec 4 with 63 viewsHerbivore

Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 22:05 - Dec 3 by Swansea_Blue

All three of us bottom clubs last year were making lots of excuses about the gap in quality to the PL. In hindsight and looking where we all are this year, plus how Sunderland have managed (although less so Leeds and Burnley), it looks like we all just got it wrong. Making the jump is difficult, but still doable if you get all things lined up. We got recruitment wrong and the jury’s out on whether KM has what it takes.


Two of the three promoted sides will likely go down. Fair play to Sunderland, they've done well. You need things to go close to perfection as a newly promoted side, need your recruitment to be spot on, need some luck with fixtures and within games, and need to not have too many injuries to stretch your squad. They've had all that which has enabled them to make a great start and build some confidence while maintaining momentum. The other two are in stodgy form, despite Leeds' win last night (we also beat Chelsea, FFS).

I do also think it's also a slightly easier league this year. Quite a few middling sides lost big players and didn't replace them with like for like quality, others have had managerial changes, some have had both. Wolves last year started terribly but had real quality in their squad to turn it around, this year they've started terribly but have no quality to right the ship and that opens the door for at least one newly promoted side to stay up.

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Watching Sunderland - A penny for the thoughts of KM/ MA on 11:49 - Dec 4 with 34 viewsbluesym

I will always use the Kalvin Phillips signing as an example of how poor our recruitment was. An expensive gamble, a very big gamble at that,being a player who had done naff all for 2 years. A huge flop in probably the biggest area of the pitch we needed to upgrade on.

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