Watch live Sunderland vs Portsmouth – Premier League
Sunderland vs Portsmouth
Premier League, England
Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009
Stadium: Stadium of Light
Sunderland suffered second successive defeat as they lost to Fulham at Craven Cottage and this is a must-win game for them. The win over Burnley saw Portsmouth close the gap behind safety to just four points and Pompey now have all to play for at the Stadium of Light.Sunderland are playing pretty good football this season but the big problem is they have picked up just four points from the travels. This would be a very disappointing record even for relegation strugglers let alone the team pushing for the top table finish. That is the reason why Black Cats lost their last two league games but the good thing is they are back to Stadium of Light for the Portsmouth game. Steve Bruce’s side have been very convincing at home this season, dropping just five points and we obviously expect them to continue the good run against struggling Pompey. You should know . Steve Bruce faces some selection problems with both Kieran Richardson and Phil Bardsley suspended after picking up yellow cards in the Fulham game, while Anton Ferdinand picked up an injury in the same match and he will not be in contention. This means Da Silva, Nosworthy and McCartney are expected in the starting line-up, although John Mensah could also be in contention for the starting places if he recovers from injury. Craig Gordon and Lee Cattermole remain sidelined. With so many defensive problems, the boss is likely to adopt attacking approach with Darren Bent expected to continue his goal-scoring form. The players has scored nine league goals already and you should consider backing . As we have expected, Portsmouth had an easy job against Burnley last weekend although the fans started to fear for the outcome of the game after Pompey missed the second penalty in three league games. However, the very good second half performance was enough for the 2:0 win and that game definitely helped the players restore some of the lost confidence. Pompey enter this match in good spirits but in all fairness they don’t have much to hope for against very good Sunderland side. Consider Pompey failed to score in two of the last three away games, our advice is to back . David James looks set to return to the starting line-up even though he’s done little training over the past few weeks, while boss Avram Grant has no fresh injury worries. We expect to see a similar line-up to that which started the Burnley game, although Tommy Smith could be dropped with either Kanu or Piquionne stepping in to the starting line-up. Sunderland are the better team here and they are very convincing at their Stadium of Light. The Black cats are missing a couple of players but that shouldn’t be a problem, especially since Portsmouth don’t seem to have the quality to get something from this game. Highlights, live score and results will be available soon.. stay with us.
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