Leicester City v Sunderland - away - 3.00pm 11.9.99.

A Tough Nut - but ..........crackable!!!!!!

Peter Gilbert 4.9.99
So.........after an international week in which Leicester players were either on the losing side, injured, overlooked or quite honestly insulted, it's back to league action.
League action is more than just bread and butter and international football is no longer the icing on the cake that it was as a line of managers have disillusioned true supporters.
Sunderland away then, that'll be a tough one although we seemed to do Ok there last year on our way to the League Cup Final, but they're a tough unit.   They don't stand on ceremony and we'll be hard pressed.
It'll be interesting though to see Michael Gray who was recently selected for England over Steve Guppy and it'll be fascinating to see how Kevin Phillips performs after being preferred to Emile Heskey, these are the insults I was referring to.  Shameful really and very damaging to our team morale I would have thought.  The upside though is we still have something to prove, and we're well rested even if we are undervalued.  Or is it a great big conspiracy?   Oh don't let's go down the paranoia road.
Last season Sunderland won their league and gained a well deserved promotion. Who could deny them their moment after their play off heartbreak affair against Charlton Athletic?  They played well all season which says something about their character after such a disappointment.
They have Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips up front and they're a handful for anyone. Combine that with a stubborn defence and you've got a tough nut to crack. They seem to have the habit of winning games in which they are not totally dominant. One example of this last season came at West Brom when the home side roared into a two goal lead but the 'Mackems' knuckled down and went on to win 3-2.
Combine their character, will to win with a fanatical bunch of supporters and we really will have a mountain to climb here.
It's probably best to be cautious, but have no doubt this game is not beyond us and I would be disappointed if we didn't come away with at least 1 point. Our spirits are high, we're in 5th place and playing well and if we are to meet Gilbert the Filbert's target of 66 points by the end of the season then this is exactly the type of game we need to win.  So come on let's go for it, don't be overpowered by their crowd, ride out their early onslaught and we could be in here.
They have a beautiful stadium, look at it and savour it, I have it on very good authority that our new stadium will be very similar. By the way get along to the meeting about our stadium on 17th November!!!!!!!!!!
The Stadium of Light, initially I thought 'what a silly name there's already one called that in Portugal' but no I stood corrected. Their stadium in Sunderland was built on an old mine where a miner called Davy worked, he invented the Davy lamp which was used to light the way below the ground. Hence the name of the stadium, well that's what a Sunderland fan told me.

Forecast: Away win !! - but it'll be tight.

Did You Know?
1. Sunderland were formed in 1879 by a schoolteacher.
2. The club are back in the top flight after a two year absence but they've won the top league on six occasions.(1891/2, 1892/3, 1894/5, 1901/2, 1912/13 and 1935/36, so they've gone off a bit then!
3. The Wearsiders have won he FA Cup twice in 1937 and 1973.
4.The club has a variety of nicknames: The Mackems, The Rokerites and originally The Blackcats.
5. Their new stadium is their 7th home.
6. Sunderland were the first team to be allowed into the Football League after the 12 founder members.
7.Their record signing is Lee Clark: £2.5m.
8.The walls outside their stadium are adorned with the names of their supporters who paid to have their own brick engraved   (Like that!)
9. Barry Venison beat our own David Nish's record of being the youngest ever Wembley Cup Final captain at 20yrs 7 months and 8 days. It was the League Cup though not the FA so we still hold that record.
10. Kevin Phillips scored 25 goals last season.