I didn't think Sunderland were up to much when we played them at our place, although that was under Wellens. They didn't have many opportunities and the ref had a bit of a stinker. Having said that, I do think we'll lose with probably a brave performance which we seem to be able to bring up in games against the top sides. Who knows though, maybe the last few results will give the squad a bit of belief and we'll steal a point.
Kovar had a poor game and our defence all over the place and Grounds gave away a soft penalty too.
Sunderland werent that great but I understand they are playing better football now than they were at the time, we had almost the same amount of shots as they had 8 vs 9.
They have in recent games had between 9 and 17 shots in every game with about 50% being on target on average. We will need a backs to the wall performance to get aything up there.
In the 14 games between us and them we have only once ever won up there and had 3 draws, scoring less than 1 per game on average and conceding more than 2 on average.
Our only win coming in 1993 on the way to the Premier League under Hoddle when Zippy got the only goals at Roker Park, they missed 2 penalties in that game and Town rode their luck a bit.
All our draws and single win have come in the last 6 games up there, the last 6 results being DDWLDL.
Prior to that run Swindon lost all 8 games conceding a huge 30 goals in the process including a 6, a 5 and three 4 goal matches.