Sunderland 3-1 Stoke City: Will fans ever come around to Michael Beale? YOUR questions answered by James Copley and Phil Smith

Sunderland Echo

Transcript

00:00 Hello Phil and James here from the Sunderland Echo. Sunderland have just beaten Stoke City

00:12 3-1 at the Stadium of Light and now we're going to answer some of your questions from

00:17 Twitter. Phil, what have we got? First up, Daniel Stokel, love this question, thanks

00:22 Daniel. Has Abdullah Barre the potential to be Sunderland's greatest winger? I am totally

00:28 on board with the Abdullah Barre hype train. Genuine point though, I'm really glad that

00:33 we've gone back to just playing Barre as the right winger. I think that was a good call

00:37 from the coaching staff at the start of the season and I thought that actually when Roberts

00:40 was injured earlier in the season, Barre did really well. His form did dip, no doubt about

00:44 it, but I think he's going to be an inconsistent player. And then we had that spell where he

00:49 was back playing up front as a false nine off the left and it was so frustrating and

00:53 to see him not play last week was one of my biggest frustrations. I just thought what

00:56 an opportunity to give him a chance and he does frustrate the life out of you at times,

01:01 let's not pretend otherwise. But he's got a hell of a spring on him as we saw for that

01:05 little header into Bairstow. Listen, goal and two assists, he plays next week, well

01:10 done to him, he's absolutely taking this chance. I think what's positive about Abdullah Barre

01:13 as well is that he's clearly had some adversity during his time at Sunderland. He's been in

01:18 the team, out the team, new country, new language, all that sort of stuff. His form's dipped,

01:23 there's been times at the Stadium of Light where perhaps fans have had a little groan

01:26 of him, kept his head down, kept working, kept flying up and down that right hand side.

01:31 Fair play to him, great to see it pay off. Arguably, man of the match today, I know you're

01:36 giving it to Clark, but Barre was right up there. Yeah, definitely right, definitely

01:38 to him too. One thing I would say to Daniel is that Stede Moubronc and Bolo Zendon are

01:43 Sunderland's two greatest ever wingers. They will always be Sunderland's two greatest ever

01:47 wingers, but I'm on board with the hype so I'll keep that coming, love that. Tony Burns

01:51 says full back position is two good players today, but both playing out of position and

01:54 at times it shows. I do agree with that. I think Jenson's going to be centre half, isn't

02:00 he? I think you can actually say he's got loads of good qualities, but he's never going

02:02 to be someone who offers much of a threat from a deep position. Trey Hulme, he's wasted

02:08 a left back really, I think he's doing a good fit. The problem at the moment is that Pembele

02:11 isn't really fit and I think that basically leaves Bale with little choice in his defence

02:16 at the moment. I thought the good thing today was having Barr as the winger at least meant

02:21 that Sealed didn't have to worry too much about his attacking contribution. I thought

02:24 that was an important switch, but I agree with you, I hope that a left sided player

02:27 comes in. Just to add to that food for thought, so Jenson Sealed's obviously playing on the

02:32 right, Hulme's playing on the left. You've got Luke O'Neill there who's the centre half

02:35 and I thought actually did well and van's the ball really well, but he can play full

02:38 back. Would it not be better to put Sealed in the middle, you have O'Neill as your left

02:43 back and then Hulme could go to right back. I know it's sort of breaking up that Ballard

02:46 0-9 partnership, be careful what you wish for because that could go wrong. Obviously

02:50 Sealed if he does make a mistake is less likely to be punished on the right hand side, I do

02:53 get that, but at the end of the day he's the centre back and he's got the build of a centre

02:57 back as well. I do kind of agree with you, but I think it's an unpopular opinion but

03:03 I like Ballard on 0-9. I do like that as well. I think it's a really good blend. I do kind

03:09 of agree with you, but I am happy with 0-9 and centre half. I think they should continue

03:13 that. What I would say is Dan Ballard is now one yellow away from the two game suspension,

03:17 there is no way he avoids that and when that happens Sealed wins. Sealed will go in as

03:25 centre back and that's going to be a big chance for him.

03:27 Chris asks who would be your main striker/nine against Berrett unless another comes in before

03:32 Thursday night. I think Berthold's got his goal and I think he has to play. A bit harsh

03:35 on Roosen, maybe it would drop out of the side but he did come on at the end. I think

03:39 Berthold did Cammy, his work I think was good and he's got a goal. I think you just have

03:42 to say to him, you've got your goal, give him another opportunity.

03:45 But this is the interesting thing about Michael Bale because Roosen got his goal and then

03:48 a couple of games later he was out of the side. I think we all expected Roosen to start

03:52 the day didn't we? And he didn't and Berthold's come in. Fair play Michael Bale is being vindicated

03:56 but in terms of that number nine spot, God knows what he's going to do and God knows

04:00 good luck predicting it at the moment. It's a strange one.

04:03 It is but I think you've got to give Berthold an opportunity.

04:05 I would personally but Michael Bale might have a different view.

04:08 Gary says, do you think if we go on a decent run of results performances some fans may

04:12 come around and bail? That's a very good question.

04:15 I think it's going to be really difficult off the back of Thursday. I think that we

04:20 are back in, we talked about the comparison last week, I think even more so now. I think

04:24 we're a little bit back in the Phil Partinson era of this will always come back when there's

04:27 a poor run of results. Listen, the only team in the world who was going to win every week

04:31 is Man City so there are going to be a bump at some end and I think it's going to be used

04:35 against Bale. I think the things that were said on Thursday were a massive error and

04:39 I think that's going to be held against him whenever this comes around. What I will say

04:42 is he gave a very, very, very diplomatic press conference there. He didn't, he did not, there

04:47 was no sort of smugness or look at me, I've proven my point. He was very, very, very diplomatic.

04:53 He praised the fans, he thanked them for the support. He rightly said that they turned

04:56 out in massive numbers and got right behind the team and said they'd done so in every

04:59 game he'd coached. So that was good, hopefully that can help build a bit of bridges but I

05:02 do think that is something that we have not heard the last bit of coaching. I think one

05:05 of his lines was as well to the effect of everybody can get a bit angsty when they've

05:09 got their back to the wall and perhaps everything that's happened, he's human at the end of

05:15 the day. He did say we all get too emotional sometimes. We all do get too emotional sometimes.

05:19 For me, I don't know, he's got to win a lot of games to be considered a success at Sunderland

05:25 for fans to forget about that. But this was the first step towards the road to recovery,

05:30 he now needs to back that up against Winslow.

05:32 Yeah, I agree. Last one comes from Ethan, he says, do you think the Pritchard situation

05:35 could have an adverse effect on the dressing room?

05:37 Well, I mean, listen, Pritchard's a really popular member of that dressing room so it's

05:43 definitely not a positive. He's close with Roberts and Clark and having said that, the

05:47 players didn't really play alike today, whether they were really focused. I think it is, listen,

05:53 I don't think it can be seen as a good thing in any way, shape or form. I can understand,

05:59 I think it's very difficult when a player makes himself unavailable for selection, I

06:02 think it's very hard to defend that, to be honest, if you're a contracted player. And

06:05 I feel, you know, it's a real shame that that's what it's come to and I think that's quite

06:10 hard to defend. What I would say as well is that I can understand his point of view, that

06:15 he feels like his contributions to the team hasn't really been valued by the club over

06:19 a longer period of time. I think it's a messy situation, we've just written a long piece

06:24 on the Echo which you can have a look at, which hopefully gives a bit of background.

06:27 So yeah, my answer to that would be yes, I think it definitely will have an adverse effect

06:30 on the dressing room but I don't think it will destabilise the team's performances,

06:34 if that makes sense, other than the fact that you've lost a really good player. But I thought

06:37 today you could see that even if the players are disappointed about it, which I'm sure

06:40 they are, you know, ultimately they understand what their roles are and they've got to execute

06:44 it. Now I'm not saying this is the theme, I'm not saying this is necessarily a negative

06:50 against Christian Spiegel, but this does have shades of Tony Mowbray in the summer for me.

06:56 There was sort of uncertainty, it was never really addressed, Tony Mowbray ended up staying

07:01 and then it's all come to a head a little while after. Football's a ruthless game but

07:06 I think you do have to be wary about how you treat people. Obviously I think Alex Pritchard,

07:10 you know, not playing when he's under contract, I do think that's poor from the Sun and fans

07:14 perspective, but that's obviously a decision he thinks he needs to make and he has to look

07:18 out for himself, I do understand that and respect that. But there's just a few little

07:24 common themes maybe developing in how Sunland handle things long term that you hope aren't

07:28 repeated, you hope lessons are learned from these mistakes and these situations obviously.

07:34 I think we'll call it there, that seems like a pretty good place to call it. Thank you

07:37 very much for your questions, we really enjoy doing these and we're going to do them every

07:40 game so please at full time, we'll always stick a tweet out but feel free to come and

07:44 give us your questions. We will try by next week to come up with a name for it, so we're

07:48 open to suggestions for a name because if we're left to do it, it will be rubbish. But

07:53 thank you very much, it's always a pleasure getting your questions. Absolutely, Sunland

07:57 Echo website for the report, the ratings, Michael Beale's post-match reaction, everything

08:01 will be recorded on the podcast there at the end of the week as well, but thank you very

08:04 much again for watching.

08:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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