SAFC draw 1-1 vs mags; could be worse

By: Lucas | November 10th, 2007

It looked like it would be joy on Wearside today after Danny Higginbotham put the good guys up 1-0 early in the second half, only to see James Milner put in a slop goal 14 minutes later. The game would end 1-1 despite good pressure from the Black Cats, including an agonizing header off the underside of the crossbar for Michael Chopra on 82′.

Sunderland were the better team on the day, outshooting nufc 21-9 — but as Roy Keane has said over and over, chances are meaningless if you don’t finish them. “We should have tested the keeper a bit more,” he told SAFC.com.

One thing that got under my skin was the tackle-cum-karate kick that mags headcase Joey Barton delivered to Dickson Etuhu right before halftime. If the referee had seen it Barton surely would have been booked, but shit happens I guess; this was definitely not a lynch-pin moment in the game, just frustrating to see. Keane is pragmatic: “That happens in these games, a lot of them are mistimed. You give and you take. Dickson is a tough lad. He is alive in that dressing room, he won’t be leaving on a stretcher.” Most of the fans in attendance probably wouldn’t have minded seeing Barton go off on a stretcher after that reckless nonsense.

Returning to the starting lineup after 3 months on the shelf was winger Carlos Edwards, who looked OK but definitely showed signs of rust. “I’m sure [Carlos] can be a bit sharper,” said Keano, “but he still gives us that threat and pace and he does get wide, we saw the benefits of that today.”

One man heals and another hurts, as skipper Nyron Nosworthy “will be out for a while” after injuring his own hamstring in the first half.

All in all it could have been worse. It was good to see the team keep fighting after giving up the equalizer (rather than completely losing it the way they did two years ago in this fixture), and one point in the league table is better than zero points. With the international break, we have two weeks until the next game (at Goodison Park). This is good on one hand — hopefully Nyron can heal and Edwards will continue to get back into game fitness — but on the other hand that leaves me with two weeks with nothing to blog about but the missed chances in this game (Chopra’s header off the bar, replaying over and over in my head…). C’est la football.

(Photos courtesy safc.com)