Sunderland lose to Manchester United: Bramble costs O'Neill his job

If you are under-performing, under-pressure, and need a fight from your team, you do not play Titus Bramble, and Martin O'Neill must agree with me now. His job was on the line and he opted to play the worse center back against the best center-forwards; the decision back-fired, and now he is no longer in the hot-seat to make any more decisions.

Teams

United fielded a decent team with only Rio Ferdiannd, Patrice Evra, and Wayne Rooney exempted from the starting XI which did feature Robin Van Persie, Nemanjda Vidic and Ashley Young.

Sunderland had to do something in this game for Martin O' Neill to survive, they were not helped with injury news to Steven Fletcher, out now for the rest of the season, and then O' Niell opting to start with Titus Bramble, and keeping Sebastian Larsson (free-kick specialist) on the bench. Their best bit of chances were to come from set pieces but there was no one to deliver a proper ball in the box. 

Tactical Analysis

United were with an inverted 4-3-3 wingers formation, using both Valencia and Young, with RVP leading the line while Sunderland went with an incomplete and dysfunctional formation, employing Gardner and Niang in midfield possibly, with Johnson and McClean on the flanks, Sessengong floating behind Graham.......How is Gardner going to play as a Midfielder when he has been deployed at Right Back for majority of the season, handing Bardsley a run-out against a United team which primarily attack the flanks was an invitation to the board-room asking for the sack from Martin O' Neill, and the board obliged. Furthermore, there has been very little to offer from Sunderland's own flanks, with McClean who was once lauded as a real hot prospect for the future, and the outcast from the blue half of Manchester, Adam Johnson, providing a combined 11 assists all season, and scoring a mere 6 goals. There is no real depth or options to the Sunderland team but they did fought well, although much of that fight was a scrap rather than based on any real quality. 

Goal Analysis

Another own-goal, this time scored by Bramble, makes it two winners for Manchester United in recent past against Sunderland. This own-goal prompted an immediate dismissal for the manager, while the previous own-goal(Wes Brown's) made Steve Bruce sacked from his position a mere 20 days later.

Who are you defending against Bramble?

Horrible positioning by Bramble made him facing his own goal, now he is not athletic enough to do some thing acrobatic here, the best he can do was to stop it and then hack it, instead he just puts a thigh to it, and the ball takes a wicked deflection and is in the back of the net, now both defenders are in poor positions as the defender behind Bramble has let Valencia come infront of him, so even if Bramble had let it go, Valencia would have possibly tapped it home, blame also should be put on Bardsley, but when you have not started a lot of games, and then suddenly you are faced by a rampaging, dribbling RVP, you are not in a position to do anything about it. 

Verdict:

O'Niell is gone, and Man United are on their way to their 20th league title, Paolo Di Canio has been appointed as new Sunderland manager, well that may just keep them up but Sunderland should never have been in this position. Poor management and a lack of sense in the transfer market has put them in this terrible position.