Talking Points: Roberts saves Sunderland blushes against The Robins!

Yesterday at 01:00 AM

Patrick Roberts' injury time strike earns the Lads a point on a frustrating evening at the Stadium of Light.

Roberts provides a spark in an otherwise pretty dull game...

Aside from the last two minutes of drama, the game as a spectacle (second half in particular) was pretty poor, and the score line extremely disappointing given both teams' results at the weekend. Despite dominating the game from the 10th minute, we still felt flat and uninspiring in the final third, something we have not been accustomed to attributing to our Sunderland team this campaign.

The mood at a half-empty (I'll be damned if there were the announced 35,000 there!) and deathly silent Stadium of Light matched the performance on the pitch, and in a game where everything prior to kick-off pointed to a home win, those of us whose loyalty forced us to watch until the end saw us never really looking like finding the piece of quality required to win the game.

We were slow and our decision-making was poor, perfectly summed up in the fact that our best chance, and Bristol City's goal, were both rather calamitous goalmouth scrambles. For us, no less than five players in red and white received the ball in the box, with none of them having the inclination to swing a boot at the ball in hope let alone take a measured shot at goal. Bristol however took the chance when the ball was pinballing around in our box, with McNally beating Patterson with power and prayers.

It was a game we didn't deserve to win necessarily, but also certainly didn't deserve to lose, so the fact Patrick Roberts finally got back on the scoresheet for us in the 91st minute was quite fitting.

Mayenda back in the starting XI

One of the few positives of the evening was seeing Mayenda back in the starting line-up. He has only started once since his positive start to the season was stopped in its tracks by injury.

Whilst his absence helped give rise to the new Tommy Watson phenomenon, it was good to see him available and enable Le Bris to be able to rotate and rest Roberts... or so was the theory until disaster struck on 25 minutes.

Mundle and Roberts are still far and away the best wide players we have in the squad, but in the absence of the former, Mayenda should help provide the energy and directness that has been missing during our run of draws.

Project Watson grinds to a halt.

If the rise of Chris Rigg was something special, the development of Tommy Watson from U21 player looking a little out of his depth, into a first team starter affecting games and winning points for the lads is astronomical!

It's only taken six games for him (in my mind at least) for him to make that transformation. Watching him against Preston and Millwall, He looked full of endeavour, but lightweight and a little lacking in confidence about his place amongst the squad. Fast forward a few short weeks and he's scoring the first two senior goals of his career, winning matches for the club, and looking every bit the prospect we had heard him to be.

So it was pretty gut-wrenching to see him have to come off so early in the game with what looked to be a foot/ankle injury which could put a halt to those continuing first team dreams depending on circumstance.

On first look it seemed to be just an impact injury, but his inability to continue despite coming back onto the pitch is a little worrying. With the games coming thick and fast in December, and with Mundle and Poveda still some time from a return, we could really do with Tommy available for the duration.

That's not something I thought I'd be saying any time soon - and I love the fact that I am!

Do we need to try something a little different - and how?

After the recent run of performances, the answer is probably yes, but with the personnel available to Le Bris, any criticism levied at his unwillingness to change things is probably a little harsh.

The list of players either unavailable entirely, or playing whilst not fully fit is seriously limiting the options available to him, and once again we are in a position where we have to make the best of what we've got.

Browne, Mundle and Cirkin were all important contributors to the excellent start to the season we had, and have all been out of action in recent weeks, with the former two likely to be missing a while longer.

"Getting on with it" until Christmas is the only thing we can really do, but there is cause for optimism. Samed and Abdullahi, two potentially exciting players we haven't even seen on the pitch in a red and white shirt yet are close to being available, and we saw the beginning of a return for Dennis Cirkin - something all fans will be mightily relieved about.

The games come thick and fast in December, for now we just need to do what we are doing better, rather than wiping the tactics board clean and trying to start again. Even with the injuries, we should have enough quality to navigate the next few games, then lets see what Christmas and more importantly, January, brings for us.