EPL Round 24: Sunderland AFC vs Birmingham City FC

By: Lucas | January 29th, 2008

New signing Phil Bardsley slots right into the starting IX today at the SOL, moving McShane once again to the bench. Our backline looks strong, potentially as good as the defense that shut out Pompey a couple weeks ago: Bardsley and Danny Collins with Nyron and Jonny Evans in the center.

Looks like Roy Keane is once again going with a 4-5-1 with Stokes and Murphy flanking and lending support to Kenwyne Jones up front. Our other new signing Rade Prica starts on the bench, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him come on for Stokes, if Keano wants to go 4-4-2 with Prica and Jones in attack.

Sunderland earned a 2-2 draw in these teams’ first meeting of the season at St. Andrews, with Stern John equalizing at the death. That seems ages ago, when SAFC were on top of the world and on their way to qualifying for Europe. By now you know the story: This is another must-win etc., a six-pointer etc., and anything less than 3 points will not suffice if Sunderland want to make a real push for survival etc.

I’ll live blog as best I can, being actually busy here at work, and having only the innernets to tell me what’s happening.

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Full Time, and Sunderland win 2-0 and have gotten 3 big points from Birmingham. More to come soon!

GOAL!! – 20 minutes into his Sunderland debut Rade Prica has doubled the lead for the Red & White!

Second half begins with Swedish goal machine Rade Prica coming on for Dwight Yorke (meaning that we currently have four guys on the pitch who generally have the word “Striker” next to their names – good to see Keane isn’t going to just sit on a 1-0 lead).

Halftime – It’s going according to plan: Sunderland have the majority of possession and the lead 1-0 over fellow strugglers Birmingham. Birmingham has the edge in corners, 4-1, but have only forced Craig Gordon into one save.

GOAL!! – Just like that Daryl Murphy makes it 1-nil for the good guys after only 16 minutes.