Odd game, that. Liverpool were obviously at least a few streets better than their opponents – who were, and I cannot stress this enough, bloody dismal – and appeared pretty comfortable throughout, despite not really making the most of their dominance in terms of goals and stuff. Still, a win’s a win’s a win, and after their pathetic collapse in the last game against Leicester, they’ll take this, one assumes.
Cheers for joining us – now it’s time to join the boy Niall McVeigh for all the white hot action from the 3pm games with his Saturday clockwatch.
Full-time: Sunderland 0-1 Liverpool
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Booooooooooooooooooooooo.
The respective noises from the ref’s whistle and the home crowd.
90 mins + 3: Hi-jinx as Sunderland win a corner on the right and all 6ft 8 of Pantilimon lumbers forwards to offer his own type of aerial threat. He doesn’t really win the ball but does rather flamboyantly fall to the turf – it’s as if he reasoned that he doesn’t really get the chance to ‘simulate’ most of the time, and decided to make the most of his opportunity.
90 mins + 2: Imagine if Danny Graham scores an injury-time equaliser…
90 mins + 1: Ooof, late chance for Sunderland, as substitute Mandron gets up on the edge of the six-yard box and wins a header, but that’s only half the battle as he heads it up in the air and over the bar.
90 mins: Three minutes of added time. It’s not been a great second half, at least since that brief spell after the red card. The football equivalent of the seaside town they forgot to knock down.
89 mins: Lovely, neat work by Coutinho on the right for Liverpool, feeding Henderson in some space on the right side of the box near the byline. He looks up, with time and room to pick out a pass…and hits it straight at the first defender.
86 mins: What’s the theory on whether it’s a good or bad thing that you don’t really notice whether a holding, spoiling midfielder is playing? Is it like a referee? I mention it because I’ve only just noticed that Lucas is playing.
Meanwhile, Johnson goes off and Mikeal Mandron for Sunderland, a sub that doesn’t go down well with the crowd. Johnson hasn’t been any good, but while none of the home players have, he at least occasionally possibly threatens to do something constructive.
83 mins: Ah, Mario. Things just aren’t going for the poor lad at the moment. He gets a chance to break down the right, with plenty of space having eluded O’Shea and eyes up a run on goal…before slipping over before he can really get going. ‘Waheys’ go up around the ground, but in truth they’re rather half-hearted – understandable, given the score.
82 mins: Another free-kick for Liverpool, this time just to the right of goal from about 25 yards out. Henderson strikes…well, sort of, and it curls over the bar. From the goal-kick Pantilimon gets more of the floor than ball, and is lucky Coutinho can’t make more of his scuffed kick.
80 mins: Markovic does well to firstly chase down then win the ball on the right, then gets involved in a low-stakes game of chicken with Brown, seemingly unsure of what to do and not committing himself to a move past the defender. He’s eventually crowded out.
78 mins: Moreno gets the ball on the left and fires a cross to the near-post for Balotelli, but his header goes more up than it does forwards, and thus does not threaten the goal.
77 mins: Double sub for Sunderland: Danny Graham – Danny Graham! – and Will Buckley come on for Wickham and Giaccherini.
76 mins: Writes Kevin Moriarty: ‘Nick – your MTM entries tend to be quite rude and slightly offensive to some readers. 10/10 Keep it up.’
Thanks?
75 mins: From said corner, the ball breaks to O’Shea in the six yard box and he swings a foot at it on the turn, but finds the thin northern air rather than leather, and danger is averted for Liverpool.
74 mins: Skrtel very nearly makes a complete trousers of a high ball, missing a header and allowing Giaccherini to get in down the left, but he recovers and slides in to concede a corner.
73 mins: Sunderland get a free-kick out on the right touchline which Johnson takes, but the end result was so high that it actually went out of shot on the telly. Some effort to get it that far up. If you will.
71 mins: Nice work by Balotelli on the left of the area, winning the ball then cutting in, but the shot is directly at Pantilimon’s chest. Liverpool also claim a penalty after Henderson tries to flick the ball over Van Aanholt, it hits his hands from about a yard away and nowt is given.
70 mins: Free-kick for Liverpool from miles – seriously, miles – out, and Balotelli lines it up…and hammers the thing straight into the wall. He just needs a tap-in. Henderson then makes a very, very risky sliding challenge – he gets the ball, but an inch to the left and that would’ve been another booking.
67 mins: Eeef, that was close – Coutinho nicely measures an effort from the edge of the box, but it skips just wide with Pantilimon stood rooted.
Meanwhile, here’s Mario – Balotelli coming on for Borini. Cue assorted shots from implausible angles as he desperately tries to get that first goal.
66 mins: Ach, Moreno throws away a great shooting chances in the area after Coutinho made a couple of defenders look like dogs who’d just been showed a card trick with some fancy footwork. He feeds to Moreno, and the space opens up for him to shoot with his right, but he spins around to shift the ball to his left, and the chance is gone.
64 mins: Coutinho takes a surreal corner in which everything seems to slow down like the Matrix. The cross seems to be held up by the wind and loop into the box, everyone stands still aside from Lovren, who takes his time, arches his back, summons his neck muscles and heads limply well wide. Really, really odd.
Updated
61 mins: Sunderland have got Step One of the ‘Test Mignolet With Inswinging Corners’ theory nailed, as Johnson whelts one in from the right, but Step Two – ‘actually challenge for the bloody thing rather than just letting him claim the ball like catching practice in training’ – has thus-far eluded them.
60 mins: Johnson another one lucky to avoid a booking, after giving Moreno what was to all intents and purposes an attempted atomic wedgie. Any sanction surely null and void if he’d actually managed to get the pants over his head.
59 mins: Coutinho does a very good impression of himself in the first-half and doesn’t exactly retreat at great pace as Sunderland try to take a free-kick, but no booking for the Brazilian munchkin this time.
58 mins: ‘Liverpool winning, Mark and Lard quotes, Lauren Laverene, this might be the best MBM ever.’ Cheers, Matt Dony.
57 mins: More Mark and Lard, from Twitter…
@NickMiller79 And of course Mark & Lard’s legendary Dick & Ken the snooker men https://t.co/CgxOWlAvnj
— Neil McCauley (@VinceHuitetDemi) January 10, 2015
56 mins: Johnson swings over the resultant free-kick from the left but it just evades everyone at the far post and goes out. Sunderland have been excellent in the past few minutes – who knew it would take one of their players being sent off to wake them up?
55 mins: Pawson’s will have to grease his card-issuing elbow, after dishing out another yellow to Lovren for a wild, uncoordinated lunge at Van Aanholt.
54 mins: Another yellow, and this one a little less soft, as Henderson trips up a forward-running Johnson.
52 mins: Oh my days. Johnson goes so, so close with a belting strike from distance that wobbled and swerved and curled in the air, so much so that Mignolet seemed to just give up trying to save it like one would give up on a super-fiendish Su-Doku and sat down in his six-yard box, the ball rattled the bar and damn near hit him and went in.
RED CARD! Bridcutt (49)
Well, this isn’t going well for Sunderland at all. Bridcutt, who was booked in the first half, gets perhaps a slightly harsh second yellow after a small shove on Can who was barreling down the right flank, but the German midfielder seemed to go down more through a tangle of legs/clip of heels than really a proper foul.
Updated
47 mins: Can’t really work out Liverpool’s system just yet. Could be a 4-5-1 with Markovic…at right-back? Possible 3-5-2 with Can back in midfield?
46 mins: We’re underway, and Liverpool have made a change – Dejan Lovren replaces…Steven Gerrard? Interesting one. A change of shape for Liverpool, one assumes.
And finally, with the players coming out, we’ll have Taxloss by Mansun, featuring quite a day to be a commuter…
Before radio/TV presenter and angel made flesh Lauren Laverne was all famous and stuff, she was in a band, kids. That band was called Kenickie, and here’s Punka…
Back to the low-level 1990s indie tunes, we have Puressence with ‘This Feeling’. Weird that bands like Doves and Elbow got really big, but Puressence never did. Anyone got any theories on that one?
Well, Liverpool have been so dominant their only concern at present will be that they’re only 1-0 ahead. Even Markovic is playing well. Time for big Gus to dish out some sound thrashings with a wet slipper in the dressing room.
Half-time: Sunderland 0-1 Liverpool
“Booooooooooooooooooooo,” say the home crowd at the break, and understandably so, too.
45 mins + 1: Only just noticed Henderson’s haircut. Not on, J, not on.
45 mins: Two minutes of added time. Suspect Poyet’s half-time teamtalk might involve a comedy frying pan.
43 mins: Ach, close for Borini. The Italian makes a smashing run to get behind Brown and latches onto a pass from Emre Can, he takes it round Pantilimon but narrows the angle too much, and his shot goes wide.
Updated
41 mins: Markovic, playing confusingly well for someone who has looked like something of a bumbling chancer before, dances down the right and Van Aanholt has to make a last-ditch challenge. All Liverpool so far, Sunderland still playing as if they’d rather be in bed.
39 mins: Gerrard finds some room on the right of the box and batters a shot towards goal, but the only bit of the net it threatens is the outside bit. Shortly after he’s set up for another effort from about 15 yards, but that one with his left foot is a little weaker and is easily saved.
38 mins: Coutinho plays a delightful ball o’er the top and Henderson takes an equally delightful shot that clangs off the post, but the play is brought back after the former Sunderland midfielder brought it down with his arm.
Updated
36 mins: Bridcutt is extremely unlucky to get a booking there after Gerrard runs across him and tumbles to the ground, with minimal contact. Coutinho joins him a short while later after preventing Vergini from taking a free-kick by standing in front of him, after some extended complaining from Gus Poyet.
34 mins: It’s taken over half-an-hour for Sunderland to test Mignolet with a corner, and when they eventually do it’s something of a non-event, with the Belgian keeper ambling off his line to comfortably claim a corner from the left.
33 mins: ‘Instead of playing an advantage,’ writes Neil Mackie, ‘maybe Pawson was playing “Stop …. carry on” in a Mark and Lard stylee.’
Meanwhile, JR has been on too: ‘I watched Pawson very closely when they showed the replays of the goal. He did indeed signal advantage but did not do so right away. First he began to bring his whistle to his mouth, then he hesitated and waited until the ball was in the net at which point he did signal advantage. In situations such as these I find it’s best to assume incompetence. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again.’
32 mins: Sunderland are playing like a team who’ve overdone it on the Night Nurse. Jordi Gomez is the latest man to woof a pass into space, that space unfortunately for them being over the touchline on the Liverpool left.
29 mins: Gerrard dings the thing into the box with a decent bit of whip and pace, but Pantilimon tips it over. The corner comes to nothing but it eventually bounces into the path of Markovic, who takes to the air and sort of scissor kicks the ball towards goal, it belts off the bar and hits Pantilimon on the arm, going behind again. A deeply usual passage of play all round.
Updated
28 mins: Vergini goes into the book for very blatantly shoving Moreno to the floor on the left side of the area. Promising position for the free-kick, with Gerrard eyeing it up…
27 mins: Liverpool looking pretty decent here – better than last time out against Leicester, mind, when they were utterly desperate. Same can’t really be said for Sunderland, for whom Larsson plays a pass down the right to absolutely nobody.
24 mins: Gerrard wins a corner with a measured shot that is finger-tipped wide by Pantilimon, and from the kick Liverpool try something smart, with a couple of nicely-worked passes setting up a shooting chance for Stevie at the near post, but his effort is enveloped by the throng.
22 mins: Gerrard tries a clip over the top, but nought comes of it despite Markovic chasing after it like an eager hound. Meanwhile, Ben Bennett writes, about ‘Fletch and Sav’: ‘Imagine going to university and studying set-design. You work through the night to get the degree that will enable you to get paid for doing the thing you love. Then you wake up one day and you’re making the mock-living room for the real-life Ernie and Bert. I’m not saying I don’t have to live amongst the debris of my own shattered dreams, but that one has got to hurt.’
20 mins: A suggestion, on the emails, from another Sean: ‘Actually, adopting some Mard and Lard features would be progress for most sports broadcasters. Where better to park Andy Townsend and Matt Smith than ‘Frogging from Carnoustie’?’
18 mins: Coutinho plays a delicious little reverse pass to set Borini away on the attack, but the Italian elects the maverick strategy of running not towards goal, but in the direction of the corner flag. Curious move, Fabio.
17 mins: Sunderland doing their very best to get back in this one, but after a corner and follow-up attack is cleared, Borini gets a booking for doing his best to displace his countryman Giaccherini’s ankles from the remainder of his legs.
16 mins: A man simply identified as ‘Sean’ isn’t being quite as quick to give Pawson credit, writing: ‘In the replay it didn’t look like the ref signaled for the advantage, which would suggest he didn’t play the advantage and just missed the foul on Borini.’
14 mins:
@NickMiller79 Nice to see a mention of Mark & Lard in the MBM. If only BT Sport would replace Michael Owen with Fat Harry White.
— Greg Palin (@DrGreggles) January 10, 2015
If wishing made it so…
13 mins: No.
12 mins: Pawson is back on the Liverpool ‘list’ after giving a free-kick against Gerrard, but it was a pretty blatant bundle of Liam Bridcutt. Seb Larsson has some problems getting the ball to stay still, such is the wind, so it’s taking a while. Let’s see if it’s worth the wait…
10 mins: And so, Pawson comes off the naughty step and gets a biscuit. Crazy world, refereeing.
8 mins: Steven Gerrard clips a ball to Borini on the edge of the box, and the Italian is just nailed on the 18-yard line, but the ball breaks to Markovic and ref Craig Pawson plays an advantage, allowing the Serb to stumble towards goal then smuggle the ball between Costel Pantilimon’s legs, off his, well, erm, ‘undercarriage’ and into the net. Hats off, Mr Pawson.
Updated
GOAL! Sunderland 0-1 Liverpool (Markovic 8)
And actually, as the result of some excellent refereeing.
7 mins: Not much of note has occurred in the last few minutes. Both teams are, understandably with assorted shopping bags and other items of litter flitting around their shins, trying to keep the thing on the floor, which is leading to what one might euphemistically call ‘patient play.’
6 mins: Seriously, that penalty decision…
Craig Pawson goes on Keith Hackett’s list.
— Football365 (@F365) January 10, 2015
5 mins: BT commentator Darren Fletcher, fresh from being Robbie Savage’s straight man in the apex of Western culture the ‘Fletch and Sav’ show, informs us that Adam Lallana is missing ‘with a problem’, bringing to mind the old Mark & Lard segment ‘Vague News’.
3 mins: Sunderland attack and briefly cause some sort of minor panic in the Liverpool defence which, admittedly, isn’t massively difficult. A couple of minutes of scrappy play eventually leads to Lazar Markovic breaking into the box on the right side and is wiped out by Wes Brown, and for reasons know only to the gods and the three officials, no penalty is given. That, friends, is a head-scratcher.
Updated
1 mins: We’re away, Sunderland kicking off with Liverpool pressing, pressing, pressing hard already.
Anyway, enough of that for now. The players are shaking hands in the traditional moment of forced affability, the wind is blowing and the Liverpool away jersey is hurting my eyes. It’s on!
Finally, the last one before kick-off, Gene were arguably too successful to be included in this category, but ‘We Could Be Kings’ is just too good a tune not to feature. With thanks to fine gentleman Jon Holmes for the suggestion.
Now, a trip back to 1999 with Ooberman, and their feelgood hit of the summer ‘Million Suns’. Wikipedia tells me they were briefly on Graham Coxon’s record label, presumably after meeting him in Camden’s Good Mixer pub, which to this day is a haven for the unusual and the confused.
Next up, Ultrasound with their 1998 No.30 chart smash ‘Stay Young.’ Ultrasound of course fronted by a rather capacious young man who was given the amusing nickname ‘Tiny.’
On the way in earlier I saw a man wearing Kickers shoes, so in that spirit there will be a theme of briefly successful indie bands from the 1990s throughout this minute-by-minute.
To start, Menswe@r…
A man you may well have noticed is missing from the Sunderland side is one Jozy Altidore, and that’s because Gus Poyet and chums are trying desperately to shove him out the door, hoping that someone in his homeland will have him back, as Louise Taylor writes:
Toronto FC, Portand Timbers and Altidore’s old club New York Red Bulls are monitoring his situation along with France’s Lille but Gus Poyet suggested it may be nearer the end of the month before any move occurs.
“They know more in America than me,” said Sunderland’s manager, whohopes to replace Altidore with a more prolific finisher in the next three weeks. “The agent was coming over two or three months ago but, since then, nothing.”
Also returning to the Stadium of Light in a different shirt is of course Simon Mignolet, and presumably he will be absolutely giddy with confidence, strutting around like the proverbial peacock, spirits high, high, high after this vote of confidence from Brendan Rodgers:
In Mignolet’s last season at Sunderland, he was outstanding and nobody did more to keep them up, making crucial saves that won his team points. He also started his Liverpool career well, so it’s difficult to work out why it’s gone wrong for him this campaign.
So there we have it. No Sterling, and perhaps more troublingly for Liverpool fans it’s Fabio Borini, who last scored a goal in any form of competitive football in May last year (for, of course, Sunderland), and has been sent off more recently than he has found the net.
For Sunderland, Lee Cattermole misses out with a groin twang, while the lesser-spotted Emanuele Giaccherini starts for the first time in the league since September 20.
Team news
Sunderland
Pantilimon; Vergini, van Aanholt, O’Shea, Brown; Bridcutt, Larsson, Gomez; Johnson, Giaccherini, Wickham. Subs: Jones, Graham, Alvarez, Buckley, Mandron, Agnew, Mannone.
Liverpool
Mignolet; Can, Skrtel, Sakho; Henderson, Moreno, Lucas, Gerrard; Markovic, Coutinho, Borini. Subs: Ward, Enrique, Lovren, Lambert, Manquillo, Balotelli, Rossiter.
Referee: Craig Pawson (South Yorkshire)
Preamble
As a prophet/your minute-by-minuter once said, if football can’t be good, then it should be funny. Good is probably preferable, but funny isn’t far behind. High comedy in football can come in many different forms, from the classic ‘referee getting hit in the face/head/penis’ schtick, to the undeniably hilarious japery of slapstick defending, to simple tragedy, hubris and pain. All funny in their own ways, but there is another way, a source of amusement that doesn’t necessarily come from the players, and that’s prevailing weather conditions. Snow, wind, rain, sleet, hail, sometimes sun (although not too much, Qatar), fog – all, when deployed in the right quantities, have the potential for grade-A hilarity on a football pitch, as these massively-paid players flounder in the face of cruel ol’ Mamma Nature.
And, I am happy to report, we have some of that ‘weather’ in and around the Stadium of Light today, with high winds reported in the NE. Thoughts inevitably turn to the gusts whipping through the top tier of those high stands at Sunderland, of Simon Mignolet waving like a man thrown into a shark-infested whirlpool whenever a cross is tossed into the box and, inevitably, beach balls. Or indeed any other inflatable or item thrown from the crowd that finds its way onto the pitch via a rogue breeze, with the potential to disrupt play and make us all laugh our cods off.
As an aside, one’s mind goes back to that day in 2009, when an intrusive beach ball was deposited on the Sunderland turf by a Liverpool fan, from where it diverted a Darren Bent shot into the net and inflicted a 1-0 defeat on Rafa Benitez’s side as they battled to overcome to loss of Xabi Alonso, a hangover from the previous season’s exertions and a terrible away kit. Of course, as we all know that goal should not have stood, the beach ball being a foreign object, but then-Mackems boss Steve Bruce was having none of it. “I can forgive the referee because if you know that rule, you really are a little bit sad,” he said after the game. Honestly – as if anyone, in particular the referee, would have the temerity to know the laws of the game. Still, it was perhaps a foreshadowing of Bruce’s perhaps questionable views on legal matters.
There’s early word doing the rounds that Raheem Sterling will not be involved today after taking an extended break in Jamaica, which while irritating at best for Liverpool fans, is at least understandable. If you were given the choice of staying in the land of your birth that also happens to be a Caribbean island, or coming back to England to play in whipping wind for a team that doesn’t so much take one step forward and two back, as one forward, four back, loses its trousers and slips on an errantly-positioned cream pie, which would you choose?
Still, 22 other hardy souls will brave the elements, and we’ll all be here to watch them do it.
Kick-off: 12.45pm.
Updated
Nick is on his way.
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Sunderland 0-1 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened
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