Same Team - Different Story

Steve Bruce fielded the exact same team that demolished Tottenham only seven days ago only to see the same players roll over away from home.

Sunderland have the third worst away record behind Hull and Burnley and if we did not have an amazing home record we would not be sweating as much as the others in the bottom half.

Why can we not win away from home? How can we fix this? Will the same happen next year? All questions that Sunderland fans who travel up and down the country want answering but few will get answered.

Sunderland needed to get the ball down and play but nothing seemed to work this afternoon in the capital. The moment of the game that summed up the whole day was when Jones came on in the 70th minute, threaded a lovely ball into Bent, who controlled it niceley only to fall flat on his face when close to equalising. In summary the game was awful and the two teams played badly and the only star of the afternoon was the horrendous referee.

The West Ham did win the game fairly through a badly defended goal from Ilan but the West Ham players didn't half work for some decisions. The referee and assistants fell for almost every decision that West Ham and Behrami in particular forced upon them.

Sunderland 'huffed and puffed' in Bruce's words but this seems to be the same outcome every time. A lot of effort but not enough quality on our travels.

Sunderland face Burnley next week at home and my bets would say if we played the exact same team again we would win the game.

It is harsh to say the players rely strongly on our home support but it seems they do. However, we sell out mainly all of our allocations on the road so why can they not perform for these hardy souls who pay their hard earned for no reason?

This needs to be addressed or it could be another tough season in 2010/11.

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