EPL Round 7: Middlesbrough FC vs Sunderland AFC

By: Lucas | September 22nd, 2007

Today sees the resumption of the Wear-Tees derby after a nearly two year hiatus. During the 2005/06 season (following which SAFC were relegated) the teams traded away shutout wins. Sunderland will have a few hundred fewer fans in attendance, because Boro management are apparently scared of people who stand.

Some more interesting points about today’s match:

This is the first meeting between the Northeast neighbors since former Mackem favorite Julio Arca made the move to the Riverside. In the last installment of this fixture, in September ‘05, Arca scored a beauty of a free kick goal to help Sunderland win 2-0. Will the Cats be able to shut down the cagey winger, or will the man once known as “Che GuevArca” do damage to his former team?
Roy Keane and Gareth Southgate are the two youngest managers in the EPL, and 36 and 37 years old respectively. Personally I’d follow Keano into battle any day rather than Southgate, but I suspect my opinion here is biased.
Nyron Nosworthy will be the only Sunderland player on the pitch today who was also there two years ago (skipper Dean Whitehead was there, but is still recovering from his knee injury).

Let’s see what Sunderland can do against a Boro side with some added offensive punch, having added strikers Mido and Yakubu to their lineup.

(Live blog after the page cut)

FULL TIME 2:2

89′ GOAL SUNDERLAND! - Liam Miller steals a point for the Good Guys!

67′ GOAL Middlesbrough - Stewart Downing puts Boro up 2-1.

63′ - Leadbitter and Cattermole both pick up yellow cards for unsporting behavior, indicating that they perhaps made angry faces at each other, possibly accompanied by bad words and unkind intentions.

58′ - Mido comes off injured, Lee Cattermole on. That’s all the subs used by Gareth Southgate, all three due to injury. Bad conditioning on Teesside? Or just bad luck?

54′ - No changes for Keane. Let’s see if we can retake the lead and grab all the points today at Riverside.

Halftime: 1-1 - Statistically the game appears to be fairly even, with Boro outshooting Sunderland 8-5 and possession going just about 50/50. Michael Chopra and Dickson Etuhu both picked up yellow cards late in the half. Southgate had to make two injury substitutions in the first half, replacing Tuncay Sanli and Arca with Dong-gook Lee and George Boateng, respectively. Here’s hoping nobody is seriously hurt (though that seems to be the case with Arca).

This is all according to the match tracker on Soccernet.com, which is a meager substitute to actually watching the game (their little avatar of Chopra, who got the assist on Ledbitter’s goal, has him in a newcastle shirt…yuck). If anyone has any suggestions for how your intrepid blogger can better watch these games on his computer, please do leave your comments.

15′ GOAL Middlesbrough - And who else scores it for the home side, but Arca.

2′ - GOAL SUNDERLAND! - Grand Ledbitter puts the visitors on top with an early goal. Ha’way Lads!!