New boss will something fr
Chris Coleman’s home debut was, I’m afraid, merely Sunderland’s latest disaster. Yet again they lost to opposition that was rather bad, but not bad enough.
The “New manager: same old rubbish” murmur has been murmured.
This is a golden era for the murmuring community.
But I have to defend Sunderland here. It wasn’t just the same old rubbish.
This was a completely new strand of rubbish that even the Stadium of Light faithful are unused to.
Barring its final seconds, the entire first half was uneventful.
Sunderland had done little of note, while Reading had been even worse.
The visitors were there to be beaten.
Then came Callum McManaman’s match-turning second yellow card.
It has been claimed he was unfortunate and that he couldn’t help but handle the ball.
But I have watched the incident a few times and struggle to agree.
I can’t for the life of me see why he couldn’t just have diverted Adam Matthews’ cross into the net with either his head or chest.
However, even more flummoxing was a passage of play in the second half with the score at 0-1.
That was when two Reading midfielders stood 10 yards apart in the centre circle and tapped the ball repeatedly to each other – under no challenge whatsoever – for what seemed like an eternity.
It was like watching two sixyear-olds practising their passing on Roker Beach.
Indeed, from my seat that appeared to be the approximate age of one of them.
He was dwarfed by Lee