Well i was extremely nervous before this game, especially knowing that Jones has been dropped. I heard it is because he is going away next weekend to play a friendly for T+T which i am furious about. The team was Gordon, Bardsley, Evans, The Noz, Collins, Edwards, Whitehead, Reid, Richardson, Murphy and O'donovan.

Midfield is packed full of match winners and i was quite confident in that. But i was a bit unsure about roy playing up front. I was wrong to be unsure, he was outstanding. He chased down every ball, created chances, missed a few good chances which i wasnt happy about but credit to him for getting into those positions. Him and murphy linked up well, following each other around the field waiting for good link up.

The first decent chance of the game fell to roy, great pass by andy reid to murphy, murphy pulled a cross back and roy shot well over the crossbar.

Sunderland continued to attack villa and a very controversial decision came, i was furious. The ref was about 10 yards away from it and a cross was whipped in, carson dropped the ball and grabbed it outside the box, as clear as you can get and the ref didnt see it??? I was furious, what do we have to do to get a referees decision.

Just after this roy o'donovan missed another good chance, a great ball to near post and roy made a near post run and glanced the ball over the bar.

Another controversial decision against sunderland came when reid took a shot and the ball struck the defenders hand. It seems that the only way we were going to get a freekick by handball is if the played caught it. Seemed like deja-vu going back to SoL when we won the game... then the ref used his authority to decide we didnt.

Villa still looked threatening first half with carew causing some problems. But nyron and evans were a rock. the closest villa came was an overhead kick from carew that just went past the post.

Second half sunderland came out fighting again, and for the 1st 20 minutes of the second half it looked like there was no other team who was going to win apart from sunderland. But we lacked that killer final ball. Sunderland had two great chances, murphy had a right foot shot in the side netting when maybes he shouldve crossed for chopra. The second good chance was a leadbitter shot, when richardson won the ball, sprayed the ball across the 18 yard box, leadbitter needed to hit the target, and he only just had contact with the ball and scuffed it badly.

Harewood came on for villa and caused some problems missing a great opportunity putting the ball wide being through on goal.

Richardson had a few opportunities down the left but looked lazy, he did seem to have some class all game but was very lazy. He purked up second half though a worked a bit harder.

The decisive blow came in the 83rd minute, with 2 of the players keane left out last week coming to sunderlands rescue. A fantastic over the top ball for chopra, chopra ran onto it and chipped the keeper. Awesome goal, great finish by chopra but a lot of praise goes to Richardson for the assist.

Villa had no way to fight back and sunderland take all 3 points. Great result for us!

I said to myself that 4 points from villa and west ham was my target. We have got 3 of them so far, but i only expected a draw maximum at villa.

This makes the relegation fight a lot better for sunderland and alot more worrying for Birmingham and bolton. Sunderland are now 7 points clear of fulham, 4 points clear of bolton, and 3 points clear of birmingham. Also newcastle won their 1st game since keegan took over, well done to them... i would love to see sunderland and newcastle fighting higher up in the table next season.

A long way to go yet but this is a start to winning the relegation fight.

Ratings:
Gordon - 8 - Perfect game, clean sheet.
Bardsley - 7 - Great game but i was worried at times, booked and still diving into tackles.
Nyron - 10 - i have to say its the best game ive ever seen him play for sunderland.
Evans - 9 - Him and nyron teamed up extremely well and dealt with the problems carew caused.
Collins - 8 - Another very solid performance from him.
Edwards - 6 - looked a slight threat, no where near fit though
Whitehead - 6 - Hes getting better, working a lot harder. i didnt noticed him much which means he didnt do anything wrong.
Reid - 9 - Fantastic performance from reid, sprayed the ball around very well.
Richardson - 6 - Although he made that decisive pass to win us the game, he needs to get more involved, fair play he did more second half but he was very lazy. He was still a major threat though. Without that decisive pass i would have to say 5.
Murphy - 7 - solid, was a decent threat.
O'donovan - 8 - First half he was extremely good, ok yeah he didnt take his chances but he worked very hard and made everything he had.

Chopra - 7 - ran around like a headless chicken chasing everything, but 1 chance and he took it... fantastic goal. Well done rocky!
Leadbitter - 6 - Decent, did nothing wrong apart from that bad shot.
Yorke - 5 - Average, because he didnt have time to do anything.

HA'WAY THE LADS!

P.s. i apologise for my frustration in this content at times!

Match Pics:

Craig Gordon happy after a clean sheet.

After the goal

Roy doing what he does best, looking scary.

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