A seemingly faultless observation, yet again, Dr. Seven (I'm just a half time at present), and am probably more confident, naively so, re OT. Not wishing to put any negative spin on your post, what cannot escaped your attention will have been the number of very, very near misses Sunderland had, especially in the same first half. Our defence, generally, is still too temperamental for my liking, or am I being hypercricitcal? JimmyTheRed

We definitely looked a bit shaky, Jimmy. We struggled to clear some simple balls and there was a bit of slack marking in terms of picking up some of Fletcher's lateral runs and Sessegnon dropping deep.

I was gobsmacked when Sessegnon came off since he was their only player attempting to pick up positions between our lines, but that's Martin O'Neill for you.

I thought skrtel gave away too many silly fouls in the 1st half which didn't help jimmy but luckily we got away with it.

The Man Utd game has all the makings of a goal fest to be honest.

They have them on a regular basis anyway, and we will go there and have a go for sure.

If we can somehow smuggle the first goal, I fancy us to win.

Thing is Jimmy, I think it's extremely difficult to get the balance between attack and defence right. Even United leave themselves vulnerable at the back, due to the attacking style of their game. As long as we continue to improve our cutting edge up front, i think we'll get away with it. Besides, sunderland had 6 attempts all game, hardly a barrage...

I thought does was very quick to give those fouls against skrtel last night!

Does? Dowd!

Jesus Doc you must go through some keyboards

I write on here on my phone, Knotty. After articles like this I end up with something not too dissimilar to wãnkër's cramp.

I write on here on my phone, Knotty. After articles like this I end up with something not too dissimilar to wãnkër's cramp.
-----------------------------

i get that feeling daily sometimes twice

I'm not against you terminator, indeed I think you've hit the nail right on the thumb! Get the balance between defence and attack- woefully missing from our club in recent years - and we've cracked it. We had 29 attempts by the way, we are too profligate in front of goal. Our GD needs improving, massively. I really do fancy it at OT though. Sturridge will want to make his mark. JimmyTheRed

Judging by some of the articles you put up, your hands must be like Action Man's hands by the end of the day, prankster.

http://alturl.com/siqeg

I think that balance is The Holy Grail for the vast majority of teams. I thouroughly enjoyed watching us last night. Some may argue the opposition was poor, but that same opposition recently beat the champions. If, and admittedly its a big ask at the moment, we could maintain that level of performance, we will be a match for anyone.

Sunderland to their credit tried to arrack us, but failed to close us down quickly enough. The time they gave us on the ball is a luxury that other teams won't allow.

Doc as usual is spot on with his assessment of the movement of our attacking play. Sturridge will add to this I feel. His runs from out wide into the box, with but especially without the ball from the right are good when he's on his game, and he score goals doing this.

Reina's quick distribution was of huge benifit against Sunderland allied to more pace further improves out attacking threat. Rolling the ball out to the centrebacks shouldn't be the only way we set up attacks.

Reina was great. Hopefully he keeps it up.