MDF Sunderland v Luton Town 13/05/23

[shatter2]

While most teams are on the beach we have the bonus of extra games starting today at the Stadium of Light.
Both teams are on long unbeaten runs so hard to pick the outcome from these two intriguing fixtures. 
Great to have finished where we did,  who'd have thunk it ten years ago,  Come On You Hatters!!

Black Cat Trivia.          Vic Halom left Luton Town for Sunderland in 1973 and a few months later had won an FA Cup winners medal. 
He stood for the Lib Dems in the 1992 General Election for  Sunderland North, but came third.

[greeno]

Interesting … but copied and pasted.

Sunderland's alternative name of the Black Cats is one which is known up and down the country, but it has only been the club's official nickname since 1997.
Before then, they were known as the Rokerites, after their famous old Roker Park ground, but a move to the Stadium of Light meant a change was on the cards.

But links between the city of Sunderland, the football club and black cats were nothing new - in fact they go back to the earliest days of the club's history.
The legend of Joshua Dunn, who volunteered for Sunderland Loyal Volunteer force, fleeing from the 'sound of a black cat', led to one of the gun batteries on the river Wear (John Paul Jones Battery) become known as the Black Cat Battery.

That name then became associated with the newly-formed football club and upon adopting red-and-white stripes as their strip, the first Sunderland badge featured a black cat, along with a ship, a football and party of the city's coat of arms.

The link goes even further however.

While a black cat made Roker Park its home in the 1960s, there is also the story of Sunderland fan Billy Morris who said he concealed a black cat under his coat for the 1937 FA Cup final. Sunderland beat Preston North End 3-1 that day, thanks for goals from Bobby Gurney, Raich Carter and Eddie Burbanks.

[8two]

Season 1955/56 Division 1

Luton 8 - 2 Sunderland (Cullen 2, Adam, Morton 3, Turner 2)

Our No. 4 that day was Reg Pearce, a wonderful half-back who was soon to be sold to Sunderland for something in the region of £20,000. At the time, a youngster, Dave Pacey was considered good enough to replace him.

[shatter2]

Thanks Liz and Greeno.👍

[8two]

[8two]

Still all to play for and perhaps fortunate only to be one goal behind. Didn't think we had any outstanding performers and I firmly believe that we can do better than Horvath.

Luton never make it easy and a 2 - 1 victory at Kenilworth Road and a penalty shootout is a certainty. Hoping for a substitution on 90 minutes if that happens.

[Wimbo]

Oh, how I hate it when my club are involved in the playoffs and yet when the playoffs exclude my club, I then see them as decent gladiatorial entertainment. I have yet to enjoy a playoff tournament involving Luton & indeed the misery of being slain by Blackpool still resides in that “trying hard to forget” locker within my brain.

How will we fare in the white-hot atmosphere of the Kenilworth Colosseum on Tuesday? My sense says we will fail, after all, we are Luton, we don’t do victorious playoff stuff do we?

Yes, I have a ticket for Tuesday but the temptation is to simply forget football and look again when the fixture lists are released in a few weeks & then view which league we are playing in.

In truth, I suppose the only way for ambitious Luton to escape this playoff torment is to get promoted to the Premier and stay there for an age.

[bms]

I take the opposite view of what will transpire on Tuesday. Edwards and the players will have learnt a lot from the first leg and will be very up for keeping this incredible season on track. It’s half time and we’re one down but have the Kenny under lights on our side- Come On You Mighty Hatters!

[bms]

And the manager agrees with me 😂

www.lutontown.co.uk/news/2023/may/edwards-post-sunderland-away/

[8two]

May 14, 2023 8:30:18 GMT bms said:

And the manager agrees with me 😂

www.lutontown.co.uk/news/2023/may/edwards-post-sunderland-away/

[bushhatter]

In the 2nd half did Sunderland play our game of high attacking football, not letting us play at all? I think they outplayed us, rather than we failed. Plenty to learn before Tuesday and a revised game plan. I would keep the same side.

[bernardshakey]

I agree Bush knee jerk reaction is to change 3 or 4 but it was working fine until the diver put the free kick into the top corner suddenly the crowd who had been hushed woke up and inspired their young skilful players and they suddenly closed us down very quickly. We must get service to our forwards, Drameh and Doughty got nothing into the box too busy trying to keep Roberts and Clarke quiet so we need a different game plan. Mowbray like him or not is a wily old fox and definitely outthought young Rob.

[hatterinSW19]

I think the successes from yesterday were keeping it to a one goal deficit and keeping 11 players on the pitch with the early yellow cards we'd had. We didn't play that well in the 2nd half, but it was a pretty difficult task once the home crowd woke up and there were 44,000 of them anxious to give the ref a helping hand.

[proudhattersince74]

One goal should be do-able. My concern is that Sunderland score goals wherever they play so we will need 3 just to cover 1 from them (assuming that we don't want penalties, of course!) Given our seeming inability to provide a supply line to our forwards when they were supposed to be such massive targets (allegedly standing head and shoulders above stand-in short CBs) then we need to address this and the quality of the deliveries from set pieces.

We scored from our first corner because the delivery was more than decent. The next set pieces were floating, hanging, paceless chips into their GK's hands which he collected with ridiculous ease ... we MUST do better. The bizarre thing was that when we did win a free kick down our right flank late in the second half, we elected to play it short instead of hitting the middle of the penalty area! We lost the ball and then Fred gave away a free kick trying to recover the ball when it shouldn't have been anywhere near that part of the pitch.

As for their worldie equaliser, I point the finger of blame mainly at Horvath. His first mishap: the free kick that Pelly gave away came from our inability to control a Sunderland throw in ... that throw in was gifted to Sunderland when Horvath managed to misplace a simple pass despite having plenty of time and room to do better (ie he was under little/no pressure). Pelly tried his best to prevent the throw but only managed to slide the ball over the line.

As for the free kick itself: Sunderland were never going to cross the free kick into the box due to their lack of height. Alarm bells should ring that their options were limited to either shooting or shooting. So the wall should have had someone alongside it who was going to sprint straight at Diallo as soon as the free kick was touched to the side to avoid the wall. Horvath's second mistake IMO was that he was far too central - if the ball was going to go to his left by going up and over the wall then it would have had to have been chipped rather than driven with pace. Therefore it looked almost too obvious what Diallo (or Pritchard for that matter) was going to try ... therefore Horvath should have been bias to his the right post. That's not hindsight as I said it to my mate before they finished setting up the wall.

I cannot recall Sunderland actually crossing a corner into the box - they took every one of them short and tried to play around us ... and they managed it too easily, especially for their second goal. We had two players out for the short corner but they had four players around to the corner of the penalty box - two of them were hardly ever marked, I sincerely hope Luton address this before Tuesday's match.

Must confess that I was massively disappointed by Osho and Pelly. That possibly does Sunderland's midfield quality a disservice but I did think we looked better with Berry and Burke but more iffy with Fred over Cody.

COYH

[bernardshakey]

Proud,I think Osho needs a run of games before he hits peak and Pelly shouldn't have been rested he's better playing constantly. Still feel very flat this morning not the scoreline one goal deficit is achievable but the display after their equaliser was poor perhaps down to a few different reasons. Lets hope a 'rockin' Kenny does the trick.