[themaclad]

Sunderland 2 Pritchard Rusyn Preston North End 0

Sunderland line-up: Patterson; Hume, O’Nien, Ballard, Alese (Pembele, 70); Ekwah, Neil; Pritchard (Seelt, 85), Bellingham (Mayenda, 85), Clarke; Rusyn (Ba, 76). Subs not used: Bishop, Burstow, Aouchiche, Triantis, Rigg.

PNE line-up: Woodman; Storey, Lindsay, Hughes; Potts, Whiteman, McCann (Keane, 66), Millar; Browne, Frøkjær; Evans (Osmajić, 66). Subs not used: Cornell, Cunningham, Ledson, Woodburn, Holmes, Best.

Attendance: 42,714 (PNE fans TBC). Good estimate attendance, quite a few empty seats

Referee: Mr O Langford.

The last time I was on a coach this early for a New Years Day was about 1993 Bournemouth away 1-0 Efan Ekoku scored after 5 minutes. Won the scratch card on the coach £20 up lost three as you cannot take loose change into the ground, interesting take on legalised mugging that but apparently it goes to charity.

Managed the steps without difficulty this season, three changes Mads actually starting, very open first ten minutes and we hadn't started badly, Whiteman having a decent early strike well saved by Patterson, however one down in ten minutes, credit to Pritchard it's a great strike but we should have dealt better by those further up the pitch.
Millar was proving a nightmare for them however our ponderous build up play was as usual hampering us, we are great with our backs to the opposition goal.
Home side quicker on the ball always looked more likely to pot than we did, couple of efforts from Frokjaer went over the bar. In truth neither keeper was overly trouble although Woodman did drop a shot from Pritchard and did well to retrieve it.
Then on the stroke of half time came the second, if ever a goal killed a game it was this one, Clarke disppeared down the wing at a rapid rate, three yellow shirts went towards him, ball inside and Rusyn did the rest, those in the away end knew it was game over and apparently in his interview so did the manager.



The second half waas dire just appeared to be an elongaged training session, they knew they had won, sure we had a few shots but doubt whether the home side got out of first gear, great Whiteman tackle prevented a goal on a Sunderland break. A few Lowe out shouts were heard afew boos at the end. Four wins in 19, Ryan, our possession based walking football will not win us many game, now 14th and the little matter of Chelsea in the cup, at this rate we will make even them look decent


Sunderland manager Michael Beale:

"The story of the game is a number nine scores for Sunderland. He earned his goal and it has been difficult for him.

"His wife and children aren't here. That must be hard for him, with everything going on back home at this time of the year. He's been here six months and he's on to his third coach, I am delighted for him.

"The most important thing was to get a home win against a Preston team fighting with us around the same position.

"This was a game more even and we took our chances. I'm delighted with our return from four games."

Preston boss Ryan Lowe:

"We can't give that much space and let a goal go in from 25 yards out for the first one. We have to get out to the ball.

"Then the second one before half-time…we spoke about Jack Clarke all week. We had to lock that out because he was the danger. He puts the ball across the box and it is 2-0 at half-time and it is game over.

"Seven days ago we were beating Leeds - we need to find a way to get back to what we were doing at the start of the season.

"I can't criticise the players. We need to find solutions over the next two weeks, the next worry is to pick points up as quickly as we can. We know it's not good enough."