Source: Northern_Echo
Nothing positive in this performance, admits Bramble
AN honest Titus Bramble has admitted that after a trio of somewhat unfortunate losses, it was impossible for Sunderland to take anything positive from Saturday's 2-0 defeat at Everton.[LNB] The Black Cats were comprehensively outplayed as Jermaine Beckford's slightly fortuitous double condemned them to a fourth straight reverse and sent them tumbling out of the top seven.[LNB] In previous defeats to Chelsea, Stoke and Tottenham, there had been elements of Sunderland's play that had been more than satisfactory.[LNB] Saturday was different, however, with the Wearsiders producing a display that was arguably their worst of the season behind the Halloween horror show at St James'.[LNB] That was the most disappointing of the four defeats,[LNB] said Bramble, who has been wearing the captain's armband in the absence of the injured Lee Cattermole. The way we played obviously wasn't great.[LNB] In the other three matches, we were able to take a lot of positives out of the games.[LNB] Even though we lost, there were elements of the game we could feel positive about.[LNB] That definitely wasn't the case here. It's hard to draw anything positive out of all that.[LNB] In many ways, Everton's opening goal summed up Sunderland's afternoon, with Beckford failing to connect cleanly with his shot after breaking clear of a static Sunderland back four. But Bramble inadvertently deflected the ball past a helpless Simon Mignolet.[LNB] The defending for the second goal was not much better, with Mikel Arteta skipping past Anton Ferdinand and John Mensah on the edge of the area, and Bramble failing to get close enough to Beckford to prevent the striker from doubling his tally.[LNB] Goals change games, said Bramble. We had a couple of great chances one when it was still 0-0 but we didn't take either of them. They scored from their first chance and that totally changed the game.[LNB] The first goal really summed up the run we're on at the moment. Any little thing that can go against us is going against us. That's football, and sometimes things like that happen.[LNB] We're not really getting the rub of the green, but hopefully that'll change.[LNB] Things are unlikely to get any easier next weekend, when Sunderland travel to the Emirates to take on an inform Arsenal side who have emerged as Manchester United's only real rivals for the Premier League title.[LNB] After that, there is another two-week break because of the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, and Bramble is hoping Sunderland's lengthy injury list will have shortened by the time Liverpool travel to Wearside on March 19.[LNB]
