This weekend, Sunderland need to get back to the script; enough of egos and the future of star strikers, and back to playing good attacking football, beating down the opposition at the Stadium of Light and keeping the fans happy.

There is no way a team with all the talent at Sunderland’s disposal will struggle if we stay clear of injuries, keep a stable defensive line-up and start scoring goals again. I would like to see Michael Turner returning, his heading power will be great agains the Potters. Steve Bruce has suggested that our £8M summer signing Connor Wickham will be given a chance alongside Bendtner. At 6ft 3in, Wickham has the height and the physique to compete with Stoke’s tall players, and the former Ipswich man playing alongside 6ft 5in Bendtner would provide a real aerial threat for the home side in this game.

According to the Sunderland Echo, Bruce will not make up his mind until after training sessions today and tomorrow and will only name his team on the day of the game. But he admits that he is edging towards the idea of going very positive in attack while also looking to play good football to keep Stoke pegged back.

“Everyone talks about the obvious challenges Stoke present you with and there’s no denying that unless we stand up to the physical challenge they offer, we’re going to be in trouble. But we have to look at ourselves and what we can do. Last season at the Britannia, Stoke struggled to get anywhere near us for about an hour because of our passing and movement and I thought we played them off the park that day, which made it doubly disappointing to concede two late goals from set-pieces.

“For me, Sunday is quite simple really in terms of what we have to do – stand up to the physical challenge, impose ourselves on the game and let our football do the talking. My plan was to bed the young forwards Connor and Dong-won in slowly, build up their experience and confidence and then look to get the best out of them further down the line – we have to remember that they are only 18 and 20. When you look at big talents in the Premier League who came into it young with big reputations, it has taken Theo Walcott to this stage to finally establish himself as a first-team regular while Gareth Bale also took a long time to settle in before we started seeing the best of him”.

There is no doubt that we can dominate midfield as we clearly did in the last game at the Britannia Stadium. With Gardner, Colback, Cattermole, Sessegnon, Larsson, Elmohamady, Richardson and other playmakers available, it is surely just a matter of their hitting form and getting the tactics right.

Stoke have not won in their last 9 league visits to Sunderland. But Sunderland fans are painfully aware of the team's poor run since January, when the Black Cats were sixth. This run has yielded only 3 wins and 12 points from 18 games, and 2 of those wins were away from home. This is a new season, and the visitors’ 3,000-mile round trip to Kiev in midweek must also be a factor.

So I am looking for a morale-boosting win for Sunderland, and dare we hope for a first clean sheet at the Stadium of Light for 10 games?
©Lars J.S. Knutsen

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