EVERYTHING ABOUT SUNDERLAND’S CLASH WITH WEST BROWN REVEALED: “Baggies without Furlong for trip to Wearside”…

EVERYTHING ABOUT SUNDERLAND’S CLASH WITH WEST BROWN REVEALED: “Baggies without Furlong for trip to Wearside“…

Sunderland v West Bromwich Albion; The Stadium of Light, Tuesday 26th November 2024, 8pm

Albion travel to Wearside on Tuesday evening to face the team that is probably the Championship’s surprise package this season. Having finished in the top six two seasons ago, Sunderland struggled to a lowly 16th place finish in May and few expected them to be leading the way in the current campaign, albeit they dropped to second place after the weekend’s results.

Frenchman, Régis Le Bris, took over at the Stadium of Light in the summer and certainly looks to have steadied what looked to be a very unstable ship last season. Like Albion, they started the season well winning their first four league games before suffering a surprise defeat at Plymouth. Watford are the only other team to beat them in the Championship this season but, having been five points clear at the end of October, four successive draws in November have seen the chasing pack catch them up and Leeds moved above them on Sunday following their dramatic victory at Swansea.

Le Bris has managed to keep a fairly consistent line up with seven players having featured in 15 of their 16 Championship games this season, albeit centre-back Luke O’Nien is their only ever-present. The Black Cats’ top goalscorer is Frenchman, Wilson Isidor, who joined on a season-long loan from Zenit St Petersburg with an option to buy. The 24-year-old has found the net five times this season, most recently in the 2-2 draw with Coventry City in their last home game, while 21-year-old left winger, Romaine Mundle, has four goals.

Who Mundle will be up against is up in the air somewhat after Darnell Furlong picked up his fifth yellow card against Norwich and will be suspended for the trip to Sunderland. The card itself seemed unduly harsh to me, particularly given some of the foul challenges from visiting players that the referee had not carded up to that point, but there a precious few good referees in the Championship these days.

The only other senior player in the squad with experience of playing right back is Mason Holgate, but with Bartley, McNair and Ajayi unavailable through injury, it leaves Corberán with something of a dilemma. There are a number of options, but none of them ideal. He could switch Holgate out to full back and either bring in someone from the U23 squad, or play either Diakité or Račić at centre-back, but I don’t think either midfielder has any experience in the centre of defence. He could also bring one of U23s in at right back – Reece Hall, who plays at centre-back for the U23s, did play at right back in the EFL Cup tie at Fleetwood earlier this season. Gianluca Frabotta is the only other senior defender available, but I’m not sure that he has ever played anywhere other than on the left side. The same could be said of Callum Styles.

It’s certainly bad timing for the Baggies. Not only are they playing one of the division’s form teams, but it also comes off the back of an unusually shaky defensive performance against Norwich. Albion did manage to score two, doubling their season’s tally of Hawthorns goals, but neither of the visitors’ goals was particularly pretty from a defensive point of view even if both were ultimately down to some clever play from City.

Other than whatever changes Corberán decides to make to cover for the absence of Furlong, I expect the same attacking set up at Sunderland – Maja, Fellows, Johnston and Mowatt were all withdrawn on Saturday, presumably to give them a little rest ahead of this match, so I’d be surprised to see any of those left out. Karlan Grant, meanwhile, was substituted late on but put in another excellent performance and was unfortunate not to have the goal he deserved. The ball did hit appear to hit his arm but it had little impact on the path of the ball but, with the rules as they are today, the referee was right to rule it out. Unless Corberán opts for a formation change, the same front five should play.

Current form suggests the match will finish as a draw – Albion have drawn seven of their last eight games while Sunderland are on a nine-match unbeaten run but have drawn the last four matches. A point would be a good result for the Baggies but, sitting as they do on top of the away table, perhaps they should be looking to become the first visiting team to win at the Stadium of Light this season.

As Corberán has said in recent weeks, no game in the Championship is easy, but every game is winnable.