Ciaran McKenna says…
An opportunity missed
We couldn’t have asked for a better chance to get into the quarter finals.
After reaching forty points on Tuesday, the FA Cup became a very attractive prospect and we’ve properly buggered it up.
Mentality and performance
We sleepwalked to defeat there.
There was no intensity, a lack of genuine effort and at no point did we step it up a gear — even when we were throwing the kitchen sink.
After spending almost the whole season trying to defend, having to switch the mindset to attack might cause some problems to begin with, but
that’s by no means an excuse for the performance.
The bigger picture is still encouraging
If someone told me that we would be on forty points by March yet out of the cup, I would’ve snapped their hand off.
Again, I’m not sweeping our failures under the rug — we were really poor and missed out on this great chance to progress — but it should be remembered how good it’s been this year.
Bad games happen. We just need to move on and get behind the Lads in the run in.
Ian Bendelow says…
Melker Ellborg and Luke O’Nien get away with one apiece
Ellborg didn’t get sent off and O’Nien didn’t score an own goal which would’ve been repeated for years and years to come.
A collective squad failure
Frankly, it could’ve been ‘463 Down’ and I could’ve used it as an exercise in teaching my two-year old numbers beyond ten.
This was a performance which goes to show if you’re even slightly off it, the opposition can make you look like absolute twats. Which, to be fair, Port Vale did.
It lacked intensity; there wasn’t enough directness and there was no recognition as to how to hurt our opponents. There wasn’t much desire either — only the misguided belief that a golden chance would eventually come, which it didn’t.
And all this in what was our most important game of the season.
Don’t forget that this would’ve taken us to one game from Wembley and a chance to continue the feelgood factor which has coursed through this club for months now. The dressing room inquisition should be detailed and scathing, because this mustn’t be allowed to happen again.
We knew exactly how Vale could win this: soak up a bit of pressure, take the one or two chances that came their way and then defend for their lives, and that’s exactly what happened.
Make no mistake: they fully deserved their win. We can only hope some valuable lessons are learned for the nine remaining games of the campaign.
Régis Le Bris completely misreads the occasion
Tactically, Le Bris has been superb for much of his Sunderland tenure, but he got it badly wrong yesterday.
Setting up in the way that he did made Sunderland look meek out wide, short of ideas up top and crowded out in the middle. And then the insistence of continuing to try and pass through their opponent’s low block.
When you have those ingredients, it only serves to give encouragement to the opposition. This required his side to stamp their authority on the game early on, but there was nothing of the sort in evidence and things didn’t really change in the second half.
To be fair, there wasn’t a huge amount he could do except bring Wilson Isidor and Granit Xhaka on. However, Isidor continued playing in a way which suggests his head is completely elsewhere — for whatever reason that might be — and it’s becoming a problem because it removes a viable option from the bench.
Most alarmingly, it was another stark example of Le Bris’ Sunderland side being unable to win when having the majority of possession.
His sides have thrived on ceding possession and it’s the right way to go, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen against Port Vale.
Only long hours spent on the training pitch can fix this, and to be honest, at this stage of the season it feels unlikely. In many ways it would’ve been better to have faced Leeds, West Ham or Brentford at this stage, because then it would’ve been a game far more suited to them.
Hopefully Le Bris will now realise the line between success and failure is razor thin.
Joseph Tulip says…
Sunderland misfire badly
It was probably a combination of the bad pitch and Port Vale’s eagerness as the underdogs to press high and not give us any time to settle on the ball, but we simply never got going in this game.
In these cup ties against lower league opponents, you need to stamp your authority early on and match their levels of passion and commitment.
We didn’t exert ourselves enough on the game and got what we deserved.
Two many underwhelming individual performances
Our defenders were our busiest players.
They were either defending or carrying the ball out from the back, but they had little to work with, for our midfielders never looked comfortable both in and out of possession and were unable to control the centre of the park and create anything of real note in the opposition half.
A learning experience for the newer lads
The likes of Habib Diarra really struggled away to a rugged League One side on a terrible pitch — a far cry from the silky smooth playing surfaces and surroundings of the Premier League.
I thought Enzo Le Fée and Chelsmine Talbi also struggled to adjust, but hopefully they’ll be stronger for the experience.
Nilson Angulo shines on a dark day
Our exciting new winger saw a lot of the ball and really stood out as a rare creative spark, but with so many of his teammates out of sorts, he struggled to find support from midfield and was often crowded out by our hungry opponents.
Nic Wiseman says…
A nasty if perhaps necessary lesson?
Bad days like these don’t come round very often, thankfully. After all the positivity of the season, this was a reality check and a half.
There are going to be days like this and nobody said it was going to be easy. The important thing is to learn from it, stick together and go again.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s one game and generally, this has been a stupendous season — 2025 has to be my best year as a Sunderland fan.
We’ll recover. I’m sure we’ll take Brighton to the cleaners next week. And I can see us doing the double over the Mags.
Dan Ballard puts in a shift
Ballard is the only player who came out of the game with any credit for me.
He was working hard at both ends of the pitch.
Sunderland become the masters of their own downfall
The players need to take some responsibility.
I mean, what was Luke O’Nien thinking with that back pass, which led to the corner from which we conceded? Madness.
Eliezer Mayenda and Chris Rigg also weren’t alert enough when Habib Diarra was putting superb crosses into the box, and Lutsharel Geertruida lost the Port Vale goalscorer in the box with some kamikaze defending.
A bad day for the head coach
Régis Le Bris got it wrong.
The team was too ponderous and couldn’t deal with our opponents’ League One tactics of harrying and flooding the penalty area.
