MATCH PREVIEW... IAN HAMILTON LOOKS AHEAD TO THE GAME It’s been a summer of revolution as opposed to evolution, as Paolo di Canio’s first full season in charge of Sunderland gets underway with the visit of Fulham. Since we last played a competitive game, we have lost the man who arguably kept us in the majority of them last season, with Simon Mignolet having been wooed to Liverpool. We’ve also seen the likes of James McClean, Titus Bramble, Matt Kilgallon and Ahmed Elmohamady leave for pastures new, whilst Danny Graham and Alfred N’Diaye have been farmed out for the season. In return, Paolo’s gone a little crazy in terms of his summer signings. Jozy Altidore and Emanuele Giaccherini arrived for around £6.5m each to give us some extra firepower and width on the left. Vito Mannone’s £2m arrival from Arsenal will see him compete with Kieren Westwood for the vacant spot in goal, whilst elsewhere the arrivals of Modibo Diakite, Cabral and Valentin Roberge look to boost the squad for now, with El Hadji Ba and David Moberg-Karlsson being touted for the future. Oh, and with Danny Rose having gone back to Spurs, we’re still without an orthodox left back, but the arrival of Ondrej Celustka on a season-long loan from Trabzonspor at least gives us a choice at right back whilst Paolo looks to boot Phil Bardsley out of the door once he’s fit. Speaking of frozen out players, Bardsley picked up an injury whilst playing for the Under 21s in midweek and is out for a month, so I doubt he’ll move this side of the window. Lee Cattermole had a run out too, but now that Cabral’s got his squad number, he looks to be on his way too. Steven Fletcher has another few weeks left before we can expect him back from his Achilles injury, so we’ll be hoping that Jozy Altidore carries his midweek form into the Premier League after grabbing a hat-trick for the USA on Wednesday night. Wes Brown has a slight knock and won’t play, despite being mint in Hong Kong. Unless we sign a left back in time (and with Paolo leaving shirt number 1 through 4 vacant, it’s clear he wants a left back!), Jack Colback will be filling in there. Craig Gardner completes a three match suspension which came with his red card against Stoke. David Vaughan is also missing for one game after he too saw red, this time in the final game of the season at Spurs, although we do have Stephane Sessegnon back after he completed his three game ban at the end of last season. Our very limited pre-season - which saw us play only three games, two of those being in Hong Kong with victory over Spurs and a loss to Manchester City, before last week’s win against FC Midtjylland of Denmark - hasn’t really given us much in the way of any clues as to what Paolo sees as his strongest XI... as such, here’s our squad instead! Sunderland (from): Mannone, Westwood; Cuellar, Diakite, Roberge, Celustka, O’Shea, Colback, Cabral, Larsson, Johnson, Ba, Moberg Karlsson, Giaccherini, Sessegnon, Wickham, Altidore, Mandron, Laidler, Marrs. Fulham have also seen some changes this summer, albeit most of them have been behind the scenes, with Mohamed al Fayed selling up, and Shahid Khan adding the Cottagers to a portfolio that also includes American football’s Jacksonville Jaguars (who may or may not be playing Hull City Tigers next season, depending on rebranding!) Most of the player movements have been exits at Craven Cottage, with former Middlesbrough man Mark Schwarzer making the short journey to Chelsea after his Fulham deal lapsed, whilst Chris Baird, Simon Davies and Mahamadou Diarra also left in the summer. Martin Jol has been able to bring in one-time Manchester United target Maarten Stekelenberg to replace the departed Schwarzer in between the sticks. Also coming in is troublesome midfielder Adel Taarabt on loan from relegated QPR for the season, whilst Sascha Riether’s loan from Cologne was made permanent for a fee of just over £1m. A hamstring injury will rule out Alex Kacaniklic for this game, but apart from that, the Londoners will have a full squad to pick from as Fulham look to capitalise on a busy pre-season schedule that saw them go undefeated on a three-match tour of Costa Rica (two wins and a draw), but then go winless against Werder Bremen (loss), Real Betis (draw) and Parma (loss). Fulham (from): Stekelenberg, Richardson, Hangeland, Amorebieta, Riether, Ruiz, Boateng, Sidwell, Dejagah, Berbatov, Rodallega, Hughes, Duff, Karagounis, Mesca, Kasami, Stockdale, Riise, Etheridge, Senderos, David, Taarabt, Frei. LAST TIME AT THE STADIUM OF LIGHT The spoils were shared back in March as Martin O’Neill headed towards the end of his tenure on Wearside. Sunderland came into this game on the back of three narrow league defeats, but we didn’t get off to the greatest of starts, as we fell two goals behind in the first half. Ashkan Dejagah was brought down in the box by Craig Gardner after quarter of an hour, resulting in Dimitar Berbatov converting the resulting spot kick after sending Simon Mignolet the wrong way. The Iranian Dejagah saw a shot go narrowly wide as the visitors chased a second, which they grabbed on 34 minutes, with Dejagah’s shot parried away by Mignolet into the path of Sascha Riether, allowing the German defender to slot home. Fortunately that second goal spurred us into life, and Sunderland won a penalty moments later when Philippe Senderos was judged to have shoved Danny Graham. Craig Gardner took the spot kick and pulled a goal back for us - our first goal at the SOL in a month - as the Lads went into the break a goal behind. Thankfully, Stephane Sessegnon grabbed the equaliser after running onto a dinked ball in from Adam Johnson. Sunderland’s last five at home to Fulham: DLDDW
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 20:19:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015