The Wembley dream is over for another year, but unlike last year when we went out with absolutely no credit whatsoever- we hardly disgraced ourselves tonight. I'm just going to say now- the Bettinelli Own Goal was the turning point in the game. Before the it we had limited them to half chances and long shots- and while we weren't exactly comfortable; we were far from uncomfortable and Sunderland looked pretty toothless. But you can't start slating Bettinelli because he's kept us in games more times than I can remember- even the best Keepers make the odd mistake and thats that.
The goals were a little bit of everything today, It was good to see Hugo get back on the scoresheet- and hopefully this gives him the little boost he needs to start getting back on the scoresheet regularly, because if he can start getting goals- with McCormack hitting his stride in a goalscoring sense as of late we really can beat anyone. As I've said in some of my Previews it doesn't really matter how Hugo gets the goal to break his run- its that he gets it. The first goal was just a completely freak goal as I've already said, they do sometimes happen- and unfortunately we were on the wrong end of it today. There was nothing freak about the Ricky Alvarez goal- he had looked the most likely to make something happen from a Sunderland Point of View all night and his goal was a complete bullet that no Keeper would have saved. The Penalty looked pretty soft from my Point of View it just looked like Graham slowly fell over under pressure from Hutchinson- and it was a cool finish from Jordi Gomez.
Bettinelli was far from his best tonight- he had 1 good save in the first half, but he wasn't really properly tested throughout the game. However, Bettinelli has still been one of our players- and you could even make the argument he's been our best player; so with regard to Bettinelli its on to Birmingham.
I thought the defence coped quite well today- Stafylidis impressed me today; he's starting to develop into a defensively sound player and he was pretty calm today under pressure when a month or two ago he was prone to diving in and giving away a penalty. Hutchinson and Bodurov also had a pretty good game- as I've already said Sunderland looked quite toothless before the Bettinelli O.G. but Hutchinson and Bodurov for the large part neutralised Defoe- with the main threat from Sunderland coming from Alvarez. Grimmer had an alright game as well, it was somewhat helped by the fact most of the Sunderland play came through Stafylidis' side of the pitch but he still coped with the majority of what he had to do well- and he's definitely given Kit something to think about for Birmingham but I still think Richards will be likely to start on Saturday.
The midfield were pretty average today, Fofana looked dangerous on occasion but his decision making was really poor tonight- he's showing signs of a good player, he just hasn't managed to put all the pieces together yet. We gave the ball away far too easily tonight- and as a consequence allowed Sunderland to counter-attack far too easily. We definitely missed Parkers influence on the midfield today- we never looked fully comfortable in possession and looked pretty frantic. Kacaniklic playing in the midfield three was interesting- because I still don't really rate him from a defensive standpoint, but he looked threatening going forward, and hopefully by Saturday we'll have clarification on Bryan Ruiz- so going forward we'll know who our options are in the #10 Role. It was interesting to see Tunnicliffe in the Parker role- but out of three we played he was definitely most suited to it- although it wasn't necessarily playing to his strengths. Unfortunately I have to talk about McCormack in the midfield section. His performance today was pretty much a non-event- he simply doesn't have the impact we all know he can have from the midfield; and I hope on Saturday we push him forward to striker with Kacaniklic in the #10 Role and Christensen coming in for Woodrow- then if Parker is fit bringing him in for Fofana.
Hugo looked dangerous today- given the limited number of times he actually managed to get on the ball. I thought Woodrow was quite poor tonight- he isn't the finished article, but I'm not expecting him to be; but given the way he's built I think he should have held the ball up a lot better- it didn't help that when we got in and around the box Woodrow was putting the cross in more often than not.
The Subs we made were probably the right ones to make- just at the wrong time. Christensen should have come on after around 55-60 minutes just to give us an extra dimension on the Counter-Attack in my opinion and bringing on Christensen when we did meant he had very little time to make an impact. I would have brought George Williams on instead of Patrick Roberts, because Roberts is as I've repeatedly said not ready. This isn't to say making the subs would have changed the course of the game- but Kit definitely needs to make his subs at better times- I understand he's still on a learning curve; but it seemed as though Christensen was only brought on as a reaction to Fofana getting in the thick of the mini-brawl.
We were far from our best tonight- but on a the other 99 of the 100 days where Bettinelli catches the ball no problem who's to say what the end result would have been. Anyway now our Cup Run is over for another year- we're fully focused on the League; which is far from ideal from my point of view- but if we can through until May unscathed, with some good results along the way perhaps getting into the Top 10 I'll be happy.
Thanks for reading as always, if there is one positive from this game- its you won't have me saying the same tired line of "The Cup should be our priority" or some variation now, because I'm sure that it was getting tedious. Anyway, all we can do is move forward- and lets hope we can react positively to this game and get a run going in the League.
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