I can only compare to the villa and bolton games (and also tv games such as blues).
I felt that we (as fans) have been a little bit spoilt so far this season. This weekend, we were not as bad as parkin describes qpr, but a few players were not quite at 100%.
Sunderland came hoping to keep a clean sheet. They had no real attacking intent. Hopes pinned on a set piece, or lucky break. IIRC they had 1 shot on target, from outside the box? They never really threatened.
Back 3 were generally sound. I said on the day that Boly wasn't up to his usual high standards. Let us be clear that Boly at 60% is still better than probably every other championship defender. However he had a slip in the 1st half, a misplaced pass or 2, and a couple of times I worried about a potential stearman moment where he had to recover (but did so brilliantly). In the 2nd half he got beaten twice on the left hand side.
Saiss in the midfield didn't quite have everything come off for him either. Neves was absolutely superb though. The man is such a good quality footballer. You can hear loads of exclamations of glee, delight and admiration for his footballing ability (some of his turns whilst controlling the ball are exquisite! Didn't have his shooting boots on, and when he went for power had no direction, when he went for placement, didn't have the power.
I thought Douglas was absolutely fine. I thought whilst Doherty was fine going forwards, when he got the ball he didn't know what to do. He was looking at the front 3 to make space, and he struggled to find the right pass too often.
It didn't come off for any of the front 3. They applied themselves, but it simply didn't work for them. Cav struggled to find a good through ball. Leo should have buried that first half chance. Jota didn't really get into the game and have an influence for the first time.
I think Nuno got the subs wrong. Really wrong. People have discussed our transfer success - I'm not convinced by N'daiye at all. I see no reason to explore a permanent deal for him tbh, as I feel he offers little. I think his goal v Barnsley is the only real time he has properly impacted a game. We resulted to him being a big target up front to aim at. It didn't work at all. Costa also should have been running at players, but didn't. Indeed, with Costa on it looked unplanned, and a bit of a mess. It smacked of get your best players on the pitch, rather than a systematic attempt to get through the opposition - having costa, cav, bonatini and jota all at the same time reminded me of the numerous attempts to get lampard, gerrard, scholes and beckham to work as a team. This was my first experience of wondering if Nuno doesn't have a proper plan B.
For me, costa could have come on for any of the front 3. Potentially Biright for another of the front 3 would have worked - with the instruction to control the ball and look to get at sunderland. As a third change, either Miranda for Bennett - who had a good game imo, but lacks the ability to find a pass out from the back, or alternatively Price for Bennett (Price is also able to find a pass) with Price/Saiss supporting Boly/Coady.
Sunderland weren't dirty. Wilsons tackle was poor, Cattermole was imo simply late. They're in for a season of struggles though, if they intend to play to stop the opposition scoring.
Ref was average - still struggle to see how he missed the corner in the first half. He wasn't woeful though.
As Aiki says, we're unbeaten in 7. We're rarely conceding goals. We're generally likely to score in most games. We're a good team, and there's a good system in there, but I do think Nuno needs a bit of a think about how to try changing games sometimes.
