Alex Neil took charge of his first Sunderland game as Sunderland faced Wimbledon. The 1-1 draw keeps us in fourth place, but with Wigan winning we are now five points behind second place and Wigan have four games in hand.
The atmosphere surrounding the club at the moment is horrible. We have thrown away two games before Wimbledon and the club did itself no favours announcing a new head coach late last night. But regardless of the way the appointment was mismanaged, Alex Neil was in charge and in the dugout for today’s game.
Wimbledon was a must win game, as every game is for Sunderland in League One. But this game was must, must, must win owing to our incompetence in games before
The starting eleven had a few tweaks from the embarrassing defeat at Cheltenham earlier in the week, with Wright and Winchester starting and Corry Evans dropping to the bench and Batth out of the squad presumably injured.
Rudoni had a good chance early on as the ball was played into the box. A warning sign? We started to get a grip on the game playing patient football around the final third. Then against the run of play, Wimbledon brought the ball forward and Chisslet crossed into the box. The ball struck Callum Doyle’s arm and the referee awarded a penalty. Harsh. McCormick converted.
Wimbledon continued to press and a ball into the box was really misjudged by Patterson. For a moment, it really looked like Wimbledon would double their lead, but the young goalkeeper recovered and made a really good save to turn the ball.
When we got the ball into attacking situations, we looked comfortable on the ball. A period of attacking play saw us win a free kick on the edge of the box. 25 yards out, history seemed to be repeating itself as Pritchard stepped over the ball as he did at Cheltenham on Tuesday. Once again, he duly converted.
Then Wimbledon had another penalty claim, perhaps this one was actually clearer cut. Thankfully, the ref pointed to a corner instead.
The first half was pretty boring viewing. Despite moments of quality on the ball, Wimbledon more than matched us over 45 minutes.
The second half began poorly. On 52 minutes, Clarke’s promising play down the right meant that Pritchard could get on the ball and thread an inch perfect pass through to Stewart. He was only denied by a last ditch tackle.
From this, the football was end to end, but also very crappy. Matete was booked on 67 minutes for a foul, the momentum of which took him into the Wimbledon home end.
We probed but never really looked like doing anything and eventually, in the last 20 minutes, we invited pressure. Bailey Wright glanced a header over and we came close.
Wimbledon had a man sent off for a second bookable offence when McCormick fouled Pritchard. Soon after, five minutes of added time were announced. It was now or never against ten men. ate on, a hilariously bad dive from a Wimbledon resulted in yet another yellow card.
We didn’t create too much, despite periods where we were comfortable on the ball. We should’ve done better against an out of sorts Wimbledon side. Neil has a lot of work to do.
Final Score: 1-1
ALS Man of The Match: Jay Matete
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