Left feeling robbed after referee’s moment of madness

WE’RE supposedly in the middle of a recession yet we’re being robbed week in, week out of our admission money by incompetent referees.

Our match at Manchester City was barely quarter of an hour old when Steve Tanner wrongly decided to send George McCartney off.

Fair enough, the left back has been below par since re-signing for us in the January transfer window, but it meant playing most of the game with 10 men due to a moment of madness from an official.

Not only did I see another negative display from SAFC, but for my £32 (e35) ticket to the game I wasn’t able to see 11 of our players on the field. No wonder fans are walking away from grounds feeling aggrieved.

There’s no doubting we’re in a relegation battle. We’re three points from the drop and with an international break followed by West Ham away then Man United at home, it would appear we may have a long wait for our next win.

By the time Hull make the short journey north to the Stadium of Light on April 18 it’ll be nearly two and a half months since our last victory.

Even more disturbing is that by the time Phil Brown brings his minging new overcoat to his childhood club, we’ll have only half a dozen games left to save our season. There’s a good chance we’ll have wormed our way back into a Premier League trapdoor spot by then and whilst the elation that surrounds last-ditch escapes is fantastic, our record at surviving them is quite poor.

Hopefully both our North East rivals can do us a favour and continue their pitiable form, meaning we needn’t bother with a demotion. I’ve felt for some time that Middlesbrough are doomed; they have too many youngsters in their side which won’t help when it comes to the crunch. Newcastle are something of a mystery. They’ve a team with half decent players capable of putting in good performances, but have somehow lost a lot of games. As much as my heart would love them to go down, my head says they’ll just about manage to scramble to safety.

There are a lot of old folk here in the North East who talk about how much they’d love to see all the North East sides stay up, as derby games are good for the region. I’m of the generation that has seen Sunderland twice humiliated by breaking the record low points total in the Premier League whilst being laughed out of town by the Smoggies and the Mags. The pair can rot in the Championship for all I care.

On the subject of opinions going against the grain, I overheard an interesting theory as I was walking out of the City of Manchester Stadium on Sunday regarding Ricky Sbragia’s future at SAFC. Quinny gave a lot of press last week clarifying the gaffer’s contract at Sunderland, but only really managed to muddy the waters by insisting that Sbragia was under pressure to keep his job.

As much as our current form pains me, it appears that the closer we get to relegation, the more apparent it’ll be to the board that we need an experienced manager to come to the club. There’s a fine line between the plan backfiring and us getting relegated, but if we struggle around the bottom, just survive and then bring in a top class manager over the summer, then it’s a sacrifice worth making in the short term.

One thing I’m convinced of is that we at least need to get a little more adventurous during games. Djibril Cisse and Kenwyne Jones might not look as if they’ve ever met when on a football field at the same time, but we’re even worse with one stuck on the bench. It’s a waste of time visiting sides like Manchester City with one up front and praying we can hang on for a draw. We’re better off taking a risk and going for the win.

Ricky might be playing it safe with his own job by trying to avoid defeats, but the exciting side he nurtured as caretaker has quickly transformed into a dull, negative team who create very little. Can we have two up front at Upton Park please.

* Read Martyn McFadden on www.a-love-supreme.com