Joint-Chairman David Sullivan reflects on Saturday's win over Sunderland
A win is a win and it’s nice to score the winner in the last minute for the first time this season after losing a number points in the latter stages of games recently. I think overall we were the better team but it wasn’t a memorable performance, which is understandable considering the injuries we’ve had. Our reserve central defender Doneil Henry got injured at Blackburn, meaning one of our most important midfielders, Cheik Kouyate, had to fill in as a central defender.
So the defence is weakened and so is the midfield. We’re also missing one of our best forwards in Enner Valencia, so for me if we had Valencia and Winston Reid playing it would make all the difference. It would then release Kouyate to midfield and allows Valencia to partner Sakho up front. Sakho runs relentlessly but on his own doesn’t have the impact he has when Valencia is running with him. With just those two players we’d have a totally different team.
Sakho is probably one of the best headers in the division but all of his headers are going just wide at the moment. He had a fabulous header on Saturday that went literally six inches wide. On another day that hits the back of the net and it’s labelled an unbelievable header.
But when his chance came in the dying minutes he took it and that’s what a good striker does to get his team the three points. He steadied himself and made it looks easy, which it certainly wasn’t.
At the other end I also thought we defended very well. Collins was outstanding and Kouyate did well considering he was out of position. We need to get back in the habit of keeping clean sheets again and hopefully Saturday can be the start of a lean period for opposing strikers.
Come on you Irons!
David Sullivan
So the defence is weakened and so is the midfield. We’re also missing one of our best forwards in Enner Valencia, so for me if we had Valencia and Winston Reid playing it would make all the difference. It would then release Kouyate to midfield and allows Valencia to partner Sakho up front. Sakho runs relentlessly but on his own doesn’t have the impact he has when Valencia is running with him. With just those two players we’d have a totally different team.
Sakho is probably one of the best headers in the division but all of his headers are going just wide at the moment. He had a fabulous header on Saturday that went literally six inches wide. On another day that hits the back of the net and it’s labelled an unbelievable header.
But when his chance came in the dying minutes he took it and that’s what a good striker does to get his team the three points. He steadied himself and made it looks easy, which it certainly wasn’t.
At the other end I also thought we defended very well. Collins was outstanding and Kouyate did well considering he was out of position. We need to get back in the habit of keeping clean sheets again and hopefully Saturday can be the start of a lean period for opposing strikers.
Come on you Irons!
David Sullivan