00:00Hello, welcome. My name's James Copley from the Sunland Echo. I'm joined by Graeme Falk from the Scotsman and the What The Falk podcast. How are you doing, Nate?
00:07I mean, it's never nice to lose 3-0. Being better, but pre-season. I'm alright.
00:12Yeah, we'll start by saying that Sunland were really, really poor today. I thought they weren't at it at all. Didn't look strong. Lots of misplaced passes.
00:21I think it is worth noting, Graeme, that Hearts are four games into their campaign.
00:26Yeah, of course. They've got the Premier Sports Cup games. They've won, I think, each one. Well, they've scored four in each.
00:32They've won four games. McInnes is known for high press and they certainly showed that today.
00:38They just looked like they had a little bit more zip. I think Craig Gordon said at the end there he felt like it was a statement made.
00:44As a Sunland fan, although I was commenting on Hearts today, I'm not too concerned.
00:49I think pre-season is pre-season. If we'd won today 5-0, I don't think we'd go on and win the Premier League.
00:54But, yeah, you know what? In isolation, James, it was poor and I think there's a lot of players that would be disappointed with the performance today.
01:01I think so. There was a lot of sloppy passes. Obviously, Siddiqui's pass at the end was really sloppy.
01:07Dan Neal came in to start in the midfield, sort of six-roll. Siddiqui played alongside him a little bit.
01:12Then he had end-zone affair further forward. I'm a massive Dan Neal fan, but I don't think today was his best game.
01:17As somebody who's pushing him for a starting spot in the Premier League, who's somebody we want to see play in the Premier League for Sunderland,
01:24he didn't really do himself too many favours. Again, you have to pre-face these things all the time.
01:29When it is pre-season, he's still got chances to get back in the team and he wasn't the only poor one today by any stretch.
01:35No, I 100% agree. Look, I want nothing more than Daniel to be captaining Sunderland AFC and the Premier League.
01:41He's going to be captaining us and doing well. But today, if it was an audition for that game against West Ham,
01:48if you're saying, Dan, can you play that role that you've played for us in the Championship and take maybe Siddiqui's place
01:53or potentially Diarra's, it's an audition he didn't pass. But he's got two, three games still to go where he can make a good audition.
02:01I've said audition three times now. But I think we all know Daniel's quality and that was well below what he can offer today.
02:08Do I think that means Daniel's done for the Premier League?
02:11Far from it. He's a fantastic player.
02:12Sunderland's two wiggers I want to talk about. Sunderland's two stark wiggers anyway.
02:16Edingra and Talby. We've paid a lot of money for them. I'm not writing them off.
02:20I think they'll come good. They need time to bed in, adapt to a new environment.
02:23They just seem very wasteful at the moment. They're not really linking up with the full-backs very well.
02:29As you would expect it. It's a new team for them. It's a new experience.
02:32I thought Edingra, he looks really bright and really promising, but he's very wasteful with the ball.
02:37As we're cutting in, his crosses don't tend to find the men.
02:39At my end, they didn't have much service today.
02:42It's a bit of a learning curve for them, really.
02:45And I think, in a sense, a welcome to British football because that Hearts team, they were physical, they were fit,
02:53they were rugged, as we say, they're pretty much into their campaign.
02:58The Scottish top flag starts next week, so they're ready to go.
03:01So it was a bit of a welcome to Britain moment, I think, for them.
03:05I think so. Look, there's a couple of tackles went in on Diara as well and Siddiqui,
03:09and they were clearly quite hurt by it, but they were just good hard tackles, in my opinion.
03:12Yeah, they've got the ball.
03:13Yeah, yeah, 100%.
03:15I think Edingra, for me, if I'm based on what I've seen so far, a bit frustrated with the final ball,
03:20but he's clearly got loads in his locker in terms of talent and things like that.
03:23But, look, I felt that Talby was a little bit anonymous today,
03:27and I think, if anything, if there's a positive you can take out of those two performances today,
03:32is that they now know what the standard is and what they've got to reach,
03:35because, look, there's players there that can take the place.
03:39We know what Patrick Roberts can do, and whilst many people think, you know,
03:44he'll not be the preferred option on the right in the Premier League,
03:46we know what he can do, and Romain Mundell, unfortunately, going to be out for a while,
03:50but there's players there that, in time at least, will be chomping at the bit to take their place,
03:55so they've got to open the game a little bit.
03:57There's a lot of time before that West Ham game, isn't it?
03:59There's four pre-season throw at least to go.
04:01So, there was transfer stories breaking during the game.
04:04Perhaps we'll have more videos on that.
04:05You can check it out on the Sunderland Echo website.
04:07But the point is, Sunderland have time, and Sunderland are going to sign more players as well.
04:12I fully expect them to be a different side by the time West Ham rolls around.
04:15Oh, 100%.
04:16And I think, look, there's two, three games at home yet to go.
04:21We're calling the game as we see it.
04:22It was cooler.
04:23But we're not sort of spitting our dummy out the pre-order.
04:27It is what it is.
04:28I don't think we're spitting our dummy out at all.
04:30I think it is what it is.
04:31A performance is what it was.
04:33But you're up against a significantly fitter team.
04:36And what do we always say that pre-season is about fitness?
04:39Fitness, yeah.
04:40It doesn't matter.
04:41It's about cohesion as well, but there didn't seem to be a lot of that.
04:43No, not at all.
04:44But I think if you rewind back to Sport and Lisbon and no offence to Harts, I would say Sport and Lisbon are a little bit better than Harts.
04:52And I thought we were really unlucky not to win that game.
04:54Weird, because I know Sevilla and Sport and Lisbon aren't as far on in their pre-seasons or seasons as Harts are.
05:00But I thought Southern looked a lot better against the higher quality opposition on paper.
05:05So it's a strange one, isn't it?
05:06I think that makes it hard to analyse.
05:08But we should also say congratulations to Craig Gordon.
05:11He got a brilliant testimonial, a brilliant reception by both sets of fans.
05:16And a clean sheet.
05:17Yeah, he was only on the field for a minute.
05:18He joked at the end that he'd get a clean sheet bonus, didn't he?
05:20Which was quite funny.
05:22Anyway, we've gone way over time.
05:24So we'll catch you next time.
05:25I think Phil will have On The Whistle and all that good stuff.
05:28There'll be podcasts midweek and plenty of content over at the Southern Echo.
