Rotation, injuries and can Sunderland sign Chris Mepham?

[@ethantodd2]

Thanks very much Phil, that is my fear is Mepham keeps doing so well and we don't go up, we won't be able to compete with a low PL side's offer for him because that's clearly his level.

[@gap9992]

There was zero legit complaint about the goal. Their player stood behind the ref, the ref got out of the way and never touched it. Their player had the ball fully under control and could have played it anywhere but chose to take on Neil and lost it. Their manager was a disgrace moaning about it the way he did ! He was covering up for the fact his player lost possession and then they failed to deal with the break The handball could definitely have been given though.

[@stephenwatson7107]

A pragmatic first half Hull made it difficult and policed Mundle very well but Roberts repeatedly had time and space. Earlier in the season he went down the outside and used his right foot more than he had in the previous two seasons. In the first half that was crying out for him to do that at least on occasion, he didn't have the nous to do that. skilled but limited player. He has to grow.. Dan Neil gets an assist from just outside his own box.very neat trick.

[@L12Bong]

Agree with you on Roberts. I was frustrated watching him down the right, predictable in his approach to continually cut in on his left and lose the ball allowing Hull to counter-attack. As we now have a CF in Isidor, maybe it is a better option to find his head with a cross instead of trying to walk the ball into the box. Saying that, the two things which I subsequently thought in defence of Roberts' play was that Hull did sit deep, frustrating Sunderland with Roberts trying and failing to find gaps and secondly, Hume and Rigg could have shown themselves more to Roberts who did have space down the right. Maybe too tough a comment on Robert's and SAFC's play as we did defend well and we won, but remembering teams parking the bus last season, SAFC did sometimes fail to break them down. The irony being that we scored from a counter-attack after sitting back for a time absorbing Hull's attempt to attack. We have to buy Mepham like. SAFC!

[@stephenwatson7107]

@@L12Bong You are right Hull did make life difficult and Roberts could have had more help but what space there was was on the outside and he never even thought of trying to exploit it. Hume or Rigg could've gone there but by not taking his space they left him room to work in. Any wide player has to vary their game or it's just too easy to defend against. compared to Clarke he's ineffective when he does cut inside. Clarke cut in on an angle giving him a natural angle to shoot from. He placed it or put a slight bend on it in a controlled manner. Roberts runs parallel to the goal at a high pace and invariably shoots from the center of the goal and has to wrap his foot right around the ball and ends up lashing it. So much talent but seems incapable of learning.

[@malcolmdonnison3987]

Nothing controversial at all about the game ref didn't do anything to assist in the goal lead up . The so called hand ball,was ball to hand as it came over his shoulder and hit his arm . 👍🤔

[@intheclarts]

Any ideas why this goal was 'controversial' lol

[@ethanfenwick2869]

What made this game controversial apart from that near hand ball?

[@SleepyBoardGames-jk9up]

The ball didn't hit the referee hence why it was play on hull dont have a case