Sunderland fan, and whilst I've enjoyed this season so far. I can say that most the games where points have been dropped have been by the 85th minute plus. All games lost have been by the 1 goal as well. I think the Burnley game will tell us a lot about where we will be at the end of the season.
Sunderland tend to play better away from home, although are unbeaten at home in the league. You make the point that they were beaten by Sheff Utd away, that match they should have won easily, missing a pen and hitting the woodwork before Utd scored late
Also had a player sent off as last man yet sheff utd player stayed on the pitch for the same thing albeit going down to 10men later also, ref leant towards sheff utd an awful lot
Your sunderland stat is interesting, but worth a mention if we’ve played the big lads at home it means we have more average teams to come to sol where our record is very strong anyway.. I’m not saying your wrong, just it’s not a big a negative as you insinuate
Sunderland have 9 first team players out and have stayed in touch, most are due back shortly, samed is hust back like a new signing and the le fee signing is great, also play burnely and leeds soon and that is all the top 3 teams played both home and away, it means all the six pointers gone for the run in
Sunderland fan here, I’m not brave enough to call what may happen… I can only say what I’d love to happen! It’s so close up there in the top 4 and with the right amount of luck and hard work I wouldn’t rule out a complete change in the order- Leeds fans will certainly be the most adamant they will win the division but then again they said that last season- all I know is if they carry on throwing games away they should be winning then one of the 3 below them could really pile pressure on them; I personally think it will be a lot closer than the champions having a 10 pt lead! Sunderland of the four should have the least pressure and expectation and that can really help when nobody is really expecting you to compete at the same level, teams at the bottom and around the relegation places really will be setting up with strong defensive performances in this half of the season against teams at the top resulting in the deciding factors being who can break defences down!
Leeds did not say that last season at stages 17pts behind Leicester and 11 Ipswich Leicester were favourites throughout the season and before. The division is very different this season Time will tell
We didn't say it last season as we were miles behind Ipswich and Leicester for the majority of it. 10+ points behind top 2 until we went on a mad run from January to April and somehow caught up towards the end of the season, only to bottle it in the last 4 or so games and finish 3rd anyway - where we were for 90% of the season. Totally different this year as the quality of opposition is much worse and we're in a much better position, and whilst we're currently all 'close' for now, Opta has us about 10 points clear of everyone points wise if the league had followed the data. Unfortunately for us, Burnley and Sheff are currently batting about 10 above their expected points, which has made it much closer so far than it should've been. We're top of the league of nearly every main metric hence why we're odds on to win the league and Sunderland are 16/1. It's night and day quality wise despite the points totals currently being close. All we have to do is start winning most of these games that we're dominating. The eye test says it too - watch any game between Sheff Utd, Sunderland and Burnley. They're all pretty close. Now watch Leeds v Burnley, Sunderland v Leeds or Leeds v Sheff Utd from the 1st half of the season...... All data points to us pulling away in the 2nd half of the season if teams actually start following their data a bit more closely, (hence the 1/16 odds of promotion) but as you know we have a tendency to throw points away quite literally (Meslier) and of those 3 games against rivals listed above, we somehow only won 1 of them even though we were much the better team in all 3. At the end of the day we can let our rivals can worry about other teams, because taking into account all the above, the only team we should be blaming if we somehow don't get top 2 is ourselves.
@ you said there that the quality of opposition is worse this season? Yet you’re only 1pt above 2nd and 3rd place and only 3 above Sunderland! So you can’t be quite as good as your fans are making out! Same as Sunderland, Burnley and Sheff Utd- drawn and lost to some pretty poor teams on paper or looking at where opponents are in the table! To me this promotion race between the 4 teams is not over and Leeds shouldn’t count their chickens! You can be top of whatever metrics and stats you like but the fact is it’s all irrelevant if you’re getting all of the ball and all of the chances to then throw games away like Hull, Preston, Sunderland! To think that won’t happen again or that you’ll win all of your remaining games is very optimistic especially if Meslier is in goal! Also go and look up the stats for Sunderland v Leeds… same amount of shots, same amount of shots on target, 52% possession to Sunderland’s 48%, we had 8 corners to Leeds 1 corner! I’m not sure how you’d view that as being Leeds dominating a game other than 2% possession there was nothing in that game stats wise to suggest anything but a fairly even game! In which Leeds scored a goal which was offside and Sunderland were gifted a goal by Meslier!
Score the most and concede the least. Simple! Leeds best team we’ve had at the SOL so far this season. Enzo le fee hopefully a game changer for us and if diaz arrives and nets a few then that will help us in the score more alongside our score more and our solid defence. Injured players to return soon so the run in with a fully fit squad should be interesting. 17/01/25 at turf moor will be telling. Top 2 safc and leeds in no particular order. Sheff utd, worst we’ve played of top 4
Love how your all in on Nodge Ali but I think our away form will be the problem. Still have to go to Blades, Leeds, Burnley, Boro, Watford, Blackburn, Bristol City to name a few
As much as I wouldn't trust Hladky, I can't think of many games this season where we've relied on Trafford to make a big difference- only Norwich and Leeds away spring to mind. The majority of games he hasn't had a lot to do.
Don’t get us excited Ali 😂💚💛 We can definitely see the great development that’s been made already under JHT and it’s certainly surprised us Norwich fans how fast the progress has been!!! I really hope you’re right about us sneaking into the playoffs but it could be a tough ask especially with Sainz banned for 5 more games, Slimane out injured for a month and a potential hamstring injury to our magician Núñez from the recent FA Cup game 😢we’re quite short in midfield currently with a lot of injuries and it’s a lot of pressure on Sargent to come back firing and not get injured again 🤞🏻 especially with our lack of depth of strikers! But what’s the point of football if you don’t dream 😍 as you said: OTBC 💚💛 Thank you both for your fantastic EFL coverage as always!!!
Only thing I’d say to George about ‘the PPG should regress’ - I agree that Leeds will win the league as they’re the best team but I don’t think it’s as massive a gap as he says it will be. He maybe right though. At Sunderland, we should have more points on the board than we do already. Should’ve beaten Coventry, Millwall & Blackburn with late equalisers. Should’ve got at least a point at Stoke & Sheff Utd where we deserved to at both grounds. We create a good number of good chances in the majority of games with a depleted squad. Mundle, Watson, Rigg, Browne all to come back & Le Fee (assuming he’s that good anyway as many claim he is) we shall see. I don’t think we’ll make top two. I still believe Burnley will get over the line in second. It may not be pretty but Parker gets over the line. I agree with George about Trafford. Can’t see Burnley letting him go.
Leeds needs massive improvement at the back. A solid defense doesnt lose games from 3-1 up. Its the midfield that keps opponents from getting shots on goal But other than that, yeah, I can see them winning by 8 or 10
@@Leedsutd1985 Google Leo Brian Kokubo (currently at St Truiden). His statistics arent stellar, but thats because he faces more shots than just about anyone in the Jupiler. He's valued at under 3 million quid, and I know that he gets on well with Ao ad Ayumu ...
@@Leedsutd1985 Search for Leo Brian Kokubo (currently at St Truiden and valued at 2.5M quid). His stats arent stelllar for the one year he has been there, but he faces more shots than just about anyone in the Jupiler. His play for Japan U23 NT shows he can be world class, and he already gets on well with Ayumu. I dont think he will remain "off the radar" for much longer.
Derby will not go down! All players coming back from injury and as goal difference shows a match for most teams in the division. Baffles me how oxford avoid the conversation, i wonder why ;)
Lowest shots conceded, lowest shots on target conceded, lowest xG conceded. Stats don't lie. It's just we have an absolute numpty in goal. GK alone has cost us 6 points, and that's being generous, he has been at fault for half of our goals.
Sunderland fan, and whilst I've enjoyed this season so far. I can say that most the games where points have been dropped have been by the 85th minute plus. All games lost have been by the 1 goal as well. I think the Burnley game will tell us a lot about where we will be at the end of the season.
on the flip slide, sheff united had 2 Senior players out against Watford, and are still top on points gained this season!
Agree Ali. Sunderland had their blip. Performance levels have been consistently good even when they were picking up draws.
Also agree on Norwich.
Sunderland tend to play better away from home, although are unbeaten at home in the league. You make the point that they were beaten by Sheff Utd away, that match they should have won easily, missing a pen and hitting the woodwork before Utd scored late
Burnley next win and we top with leeds then everyones forced to put us in conversation
Also had a player sent off as last man yet sheff utd player stayed on the pitch for the same thing albeit going down to 10men later also, ref leant towards sheff utd an awful lot
Would disagree poor at millwall Plymouth stoke watford Preston qpr and large chunks v Swansea
Your sunderland stat is interesting, but worth a mention if we’ve played the big lads at home it means we have more average teams to come to sol where our record is very strong anyway.. I’m not saying your wrong, just it’s not a big a negative as you insinuate
Sunderland have 9 first team players out and have stayed in touch, most are due back shortly, samed is hust back like a new signing and the le fee signing is great, also play burnely and leeds soon and that is all the top 3 teams played both home and away, it means all the six pointers gone for the run in
Sunderland fan here, I’m not brave enough to call what may happen… I can only say what I’d love to happen!
It’s so close up there in the top 4 and with the right amount of luck and hard work I wouldn’t rule out a complete change in the order- Leeds fans will certainly be the most adamant they will win the division but then again they said that last season- all I know is if they carry on throwing games away they should be winning then one of the 3 below them could really pile pressure on them; I personally think it will be a lot closer than the champions having a 10 pt lead!
Sunderland of the four should have the least pressure and expectation and that can really help when nobody is really expecting you to compete at the same level, teams at the bottom and around the relegation places really will be setting up with strong defensive performances in this half of the season against teams at the top resulting in the deciding factors being who can break defences down!
Leeds did not say that last season at stages 17pts behind Leicester and 11 Ipswich
Leicester were favourites throughout the season and before. The division is very different this season
Time will tell
We didn't say it last season as we were miles behind Ipswich and Leicester for the majority of it.
10+ points behind top 2 until we went on a mad run from January to April and somehow caught up towards the end of the season,
only to bottle it in the last 4 or so games and finish 3rd anyway - where we were for 90% of the season.
Totally different this year as the quality of opposition is much worse and we're in a much better position,
and whilst we're currently all 'close' for now, Opta has us about 10 points clear of everyone points wise if the league had followed the data.
Unfortunately for us, Burnley and Sheff are currently batting about 10 above their expected points,
which has made it much closer so far than it should've been.
We're top of the league of nearly every main metric hence why we're odds on to win the league and Sunderland are 16/1.
It's night and day quality wise despite the points totals currently being close.
All we have to do is start winning most of these games that we're dominating.
The eye test says it too - watch any game between Sheff Utd, Sunderland and Burnley. They're all pretty close.
Now watch Leeds v Burnley, Sunderland v Leeds or Leeds v Sheff Utd from the 1st half of the season......
All data points to us pulling away in the 2nd half of the season if teams actually start following their data a bit more closely,
(hence the 1/16 odds of promotion) but as you know we have a tendency to throw points away quite literally (Meslier)
and of those 3 games against rivals listed above, we somehow only won 1 of them even though we were much the better team in all 3.
At the end of the day we can let our rivals can worry about other teams,
because taking into account all the above, the only team we should be blaming if we somehow don't get top 2 is ourselves.
@ you said there that the quality of opposition is worse this season? Yet you’re only 1pt above 2nd and 3rd place and only 3 above Sunderland!
So you can’t be quite as good as your fans are making out!
Same as Sunderland, Burnley and Sheff Utd- drawn and lost to some pretty poor teams on paper or looking at where opponents are in the table!
To me this promotion race between the 4 teams is not over and Leeds shouldn’t count their chickens! You can be top of whatever metrics and stats you like but the fact is it’s all irrelevant if you’re getting all of the ball and all of the chances to then throw games away like Hull, Preston, Sunderland! To think that won’t happen again or that you’ll win all of your remaining games is very optimistic especially if Meslier is in goal!
Also go and look up the stats for Sunderland v Leeds… same amount of shots, same amount of shots on target, 52% possession to Sunderland’s 48%, we had 8 corners to Leeds 1 corner!
I’m not sure how you’d view that as being Leeds dominating a game other than 2% possession there was nothing in that game stats wise to suggest anything but a fairly even game!
In which Leeds scored a goal which was offside and Sunderland were gifted a goal by Meslier!
Score the most and concede the least. Simple! Leeds best team we’ve had at the SOL so far this season. Enzo le fee hopefully a game changer for us and if diaz arrives and nets a few then that will help us in the score more alongside our score more and our solid defence. Injured players to return soon so the run in with a fully fit squad should be interesting. 17/01/25 at turf moor will be telling. Top 2 safc and leeds in no particular order. Sheff utd, worst we’ve played of top 4
Love how your all in on Nodge Ali but I think our away form will be the problem. Still have to go to Blades, Leeds, Burnley, Boro, Watford, Blackburn, Bristol City to name a few
As much as I wouldn't trust Hladky, I can't think of many games this season where we've relied on Trafford to make a big difference- only Norwich and Leeds away spring to mind. The majority of games he hasn't had a lot to do.
Don’t get us excited Ali 😂💚💛 We can definitely see the great development that’s been made already under JHT and it’s certainly surprised us Norwich fans how fast the progress has been!!! I really hope you’re right about us sneaking into the playoffs but it could be a tough ask especially with Sainz banned for 5 more games, Slimane out injured for a month and a potential hamstring injury to our magician Núñez from the recent FA Cup game 😢we’re quite short in midfield currently with a lot of injuries and it’s a lot of pressure on Sargent to come back firing and not get injured again 🤞🏻 especially with our lack of depth of strikers! But what’s the point of football if you don’t dream 😍 as you said: OTBC 💚💛 Thank you both for your fantastic EFL coverage as always!!!
Only thing I’d say to George about ‘the PPG should regress’ - I agree that Leeds will win the league as they’re the best team but I don’t think it’s as massive a gap as he says it will be. He maybe right though.
At Sunderland, we should have more points on the board than we do already. Should’ve beaten Coventry, Millwall & Blackburn with late equalisers. Should’ve got at least a point at Stoke & Sheff Utd where we deserved to at both grounds. We create a good number of good chances in the majority of games with a depleted squad. Mundle, Watson, Rigg, Browne all to come back & Le Fee (assuming he’s that good anyway as many claim he is) we shall see.
I don’t think we’ll make top two. I still believe Burnley will get over the line in second. It may not be pretty but Parker gets over the line. I agree with George about Trafford. Can’t see Burnley letting him go.
Leeds needs massive improvement at the back. A solid defense doesnt lose games from 3-1 up. Its the midfield that keps opponents from getting shots on goal
But other than that, yeah, I can see them winning by 8 or 10
No we don't, we just need a new keeper. Lowest shots conceded, lowest xG conceded.
@@Leedsutd1985 Google Leo Brian Kokubo (currently at St Truiden). His statistics arent stellar, but thats because he faces more shots than just about anyone in the Jupiler. He's valued at under 3 million quid, and I know that he gets on well with Ao ad Ayumu ...
@@Leedsutd1985 Search for Leo Brian Kokubo (currently at St Truiden and valued at 2.5M quid). His stats arent stelllar for the one year he has been there, but he faces more shots than just about anyone in the Jupiler. His play for Japan U23 NT shows he can be world class, and he already gets on well with Ayumu. I dont think he will remain "off the radar" for much longer.
Derby will not go down! All players coming back from injury and as goal difference shows a match for most teams in the division. Baffles me how oxford avoid the conversation, i wonder why ;)
Sunderland third Burnley 2nd Leeds 1st
Leeds won’t win by 10 points and what has suggested Leeds’s defence is better than Burnley’s? What backs up that suggestion???
Lowest shots conceded, lowest shots on target conceded, lowest xG conceded. Stats don't lie. It's just we have an absolute numpty in goal. GK alone has cost us 6 points, and that's being generous, he has been at fault for half of our goals.
BORO are going to loose Lata la and Doke