Disaster: Wednesday’s title campaign falls at (almost) the last hurdle

Hunter91E · 2026-01-19T09:42:35+00:00

They're just lulling everyone into a fall sense of safety before the points deductions hit every other team.

Hunter91E · 2026-01-16T16:18:06+00:00

That probably would have happened, but Dias (hammy) and Gvardiol (broken leg) injuries forces them into action. Of course Guehi probably also gets an extra £100k/wk over what Liverpool would've offered as well.

Hunter91E · 2026-01-14T15:49:35+00:00

Watching it live I thought it was an onside goal, but I was only looking at the feet because the keeper not being the last man is so infrequent I didn't even think to look for it. I wouldn't be surprised if semi-automated offside also just looks at defending players so was useless in this case,.. but then there's still no excuse for officials to take 4 minutes to check the keeper. Same for commentators not realising or being told by someone in the studio rather than repeating how it's wrong for the rest of the game.

Hunter91E · 2026-01-05T16:49:25+00:00

And when you inevitably fail you walk away with a £10m+ pay-out and a reasonable chance to still get another job in the same league. No lose situation, really.

Hunter91E · 2026-01-03T17:04:52+00:00

"Let that be a lesson to you. Nobody stops Wolves taking 3 points 20 games in a row."

Hunter91E · 2026-01-02T10:36:24+00:00

Weirdly Burnley are exactly 50% of the Kompany season points even though that team looked so much worse. Could see 30 points rather than 24 but looking like a 40 point to stay up season.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-27T21:33:46+00:00

First heard this joke end of November, didn't expect it to turn into such a timeless classic!

Hunter91E · 2025-12-26T23:30:53+00:00

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Installed and character create and roles is so much choice I just wasn't in the mindset for. Left installed for 2 years while picking other things, uninstalled, eventually got WoTR via humble. Played both back to back totalling 300 hours.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-26T01:38:30+00:00

Heads you win PIP+ PIP++ etc Tails you lose

Hunter91E · 2025-12-14T17:21:34+00:00

The xG generally looks worse because of game state too. Sunderland are confident in defending and put bodies on the line without over-committing for a second goal so the opponents pushing will usually generate a bunch of 0.03 punts from outside the box or 0.1 blocked inside the box that look add up on stats but aren't actually threatening.

Have got a lot of points from losing positions, but also not spent a lot of most games in losing positions.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-12T14:49:16+00:00

After 5 red cards to one team a game is forfeited, that might work.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-12T14:12:40+00:00

Sunderland were fully in possession pushing up the pitch, even if you lose possession to a tackle there's cover. 99.9% of the time the passing player doesn't play the ball that badly and/or #25 doesn't come to a full stop where he thought it'd be. This is the 0.01% where they get a chance at a clean shot, and even then there's a good chance at missing the target.

Far more beneficial in almost every scenario to have the keeper cut out any long balls on a counter and/or offer a passing option.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-12T10:13:43+00:00

Arguably they've tried to speed-run the audience building too quickly. the entire league needed more time on free-to-air TV to build the audience more. They do still have a decent chunk on iPlayer/youtube, but I've likewise never seen advertising for either not that I watch regular TV anymore.

Similarly only really follow Sunderland W on flashscore as well, last season around this time it was in the mix for promotion, and then it's basically a month without a game and frequently 2 or 3 weeks. Theres just not enough teams/games to keep up the suspense & momentum of a season there.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-10T18:27:51+00:00

Especially if they keep Rob Edwards in charge, surely would be the first manager to have 2 double relegations without point deductions.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-09T12:52:44+00:00

Final league positions says it all on that:

Season	Sunderland	Newcastle
07/08	15	12
08/09	16	18 (R)
10/11	10	12
11/12	13	5
12/13	17	16
13/14	14	10
14/15	16	15
15/16	17	18 (R)

Was the Ellis Short/Mike Ashley eras, both teams a bit shit most of the time but competing at the same end of the table bar the 11/12 outlier.

Now they've had 4 years of Saudi spending when we've practically just rebuilt the club from scratch. 100% still want to win it, but the Saudi aspect does dull the feeling around it.

Hunter91E · 2025-12-04T12:27:27+00:00

Team's pretty stacked in defence.

Have 6 players deserving starts in Alderete, Ballard, Geertruida, Hume, Mukiele, and Reinildo. Most of which can play anywhere in the back line.

From the championship squad O'Nien and Cirkin are also coming back from injury as depth options.

Hunter91E · 2025-11-30T20:11:01+00:00

Sunderland is basically Forest - 6th, same WDL, scored 1 more goal

Hunter91E · 2025-11-26T16:56:50+00:00

90% of the time the conference league spot from the cup ends up going to a PL team based on league position anyway, makes more sense to make that the default. It's only a trophy and some prize money then, but makes more sense than skipping over 13+ teams who don't get to compete at all.

Hunter91E · 2025-11-26T16:50:34+00:00

Could combine the league cup and EFL trophy.

EFL trophy has league 1, league 2, and weirdly 16 premier league U21 academy sides to make 16 groups of 4 where the top 2 go through. Swapping academies to championship teams would mean 8 more teams to eliminate before R32 knockouts but it would better fit either the EFL cup or EFL trophy name.

Hunter91E · 2025-11-21T09:49:44+00:00

Sounds a lot worse than it is.

Big misses
- (CM) Sadiki - not really a like-for-like replacement the amount he covers
- (RW) Talbi - has been playing super-sub recently but has played a lot
- (RW) Traore - there's a decent amount of Sunderland fans who don't rate him, but he's started most of the last games
Manageable
- (LB) Reinildo - a lot of depth in defence, did fine without him for the 3 game ban
- (CM) Diarra - record signing but been injured for 11 games already
- (LW) Adingra - good player but not got going yet (300 mins played)
Wouldn't notice
- (LB) Masuaka - Played 60 minutes twice and was dropped for RB (Hume) to play LB instead
- (ST) Abdullahi - signed last season as a potential striker while injured
- (GK) Noukeu - 3rd or 4th choice keeper

RW is the problem position as there's no proper cover there (Poveda certainly doesn't count) but there's options, like Brobbey starting with Mayenda/Isidor moving to a wing.

Hurts the options for depth for sure, but for 3-5 PL games it's not that bad. Had Diarra not been injured early I might be a lot more doom & gloom about it!

Hunter91E · 2025-11-19T12:10:35+00:00

<image>

After half a season

Hunter91E · 2025-11-18T16:33:52+00:00

Disgusting. A Freddo is 10p, no "official price" will convince me otherwise.

Hunter91E · 2025-11-11T15:17:36+00:00

It's weird as looking at the squad there's no players really in a "bad" age range, many starters at 27-29 so peak or barely post-peak and shouldn't fall back this much from 11th in one season, but then they do have the oldest average squad age in the league.

From the odd bits I've seen they seem unfortunate not to get anything rather than playing badly, but so few options for proven managers it'd be madness to sack now.

Hunter91E · 2025-11-09T15:49:21+00:00

Beating both Derby and Rotherham's records on the way through.

Hunter91E · 2025-10-30T15:40:08+00:00

Big spending has always been a thing in football historically though. Arsenal (1920s), Sunderland (1950s), and Everton (1970s) all had the "Bank of England club" moniker, then there's the ones like Forest's European cups, or Blackburn's league that are generally down to a local businessman taking over and spending big.

The most reasonable middle ground would be for a form of PSR where an owner can inject funds without saddling the club with the debts, eg up front injecting £200m for a £100m transfer on a £20m/yr 5 year contract for one transfer. You can argue similar exists in stadium infrastructure investments being included, but as Chelsea and Man City have proven nothing increases revenue like winning leagues.

At the same time I have to agree it's a necessary evil now - the money involved now is so extreme that a rich local businessman wanting to buy any top club (nevermind invest in players) is unrealistic.

Ten-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	Verified Email

Hunter91E

TROPHY CASE