The Kraken

A fair comment, Bear. Especially given Wigan probably brought around half the fans that Sunderland did. So we had around 1,000 fewer fans at St. Mary's yesterday than on opening day last season.

And yet here you are commenting on it. Go figure.

Sadly Sunderland didn't fill the away end, Matthew. They brought "just under 2,000 fans" according to a couple of online reports; so "circa 31,000" is a little generous if those figures are correct.

Yep, everyone loves an attendance debate. But I thought 29,596 was a pretty poor figure for opening day. There are of course plenty of excuses why the figure was so low; holidays, Sunderland returned tickets, excessive ticket prices, games shown on streams and in pubs etc etc. Nonetheless I think its a shame that the investment made by the club into the squad this summer and last wasn't matched by us getting close to a sell-out. Crowds will improve, they always do pick up from the typically lower figures at the start of the season. But it would seem we haven't yet made the big strides forward in terms of attendance that some of us (myself included) hoped/expected we would.

Funny how comments like this last season caused uproar on here. I thought Rodriguez was poor today, he just doesn't seem to offer enough. A very frustrating player.

Kind of makes you think that any clamour for a 50k stadium is a bit unnecessary right now.

To be fair you have a point. Post Lawrie (and one superb season from Chris Nichol aside), apart from the odd mid table finish here or there at the Dell our top flight stay was punctuated far too often with near-misses of relegation. Even a cynic such as me who still prefers our endeavours in L1 and the Champo compared to the Premier League moneyopoly is starting to think there's some genuine merit to our fortunes this time round beyond thinking that 8th place is an alternative form of utopia.

Spoken like someone who truly believes football began in 1992 Pappy!

Alpine I've missed you while times have been good.

Amen to that. What caught me most was not how delighted (obviously) Rickie was when he scored, but how delighted the whole team was for him. Even Lampard, a seasoned pro, was hugging him and had a genuinely massive smile on his face. When Beattie played for England as a Saint it looked like he was treated as an outcast; Rickie made it happen for himself and his enthusiasm seemed to be infectious.

You also have to be decent in the first place. Robbie Fowler, or Michael Owen breaking through were never going to be held up by having a foreigner in there. They were good enough in their own right; Fowler was being scouted all across Europe before he made his Liverpool debut. Its as much about talent as it is about being given a chance, and Engand haven't produced consistently like that for years.

I don't know what it comes down to. Let's face it, those lot of strikers were definitely an embarrassment of riches. But like you I can't lay the blame solely at the Premier league being inundated with foreigners. In footballing terms we're still a significant country in our own right, and to have fallen so far is as baffling as it is frustrating.

Let's be honest; in an ideal world it wouldn't be either Lambert or Carroll. I grew up in an era of having to pick from strikers such as Shearer, Wright, Ferdinand, Sheringham, Fowler, Cole and Owen. Andy Cole was a nobody for England but, had he played in today's era, he's probably have as many caps as Rooney.

Good to know that we have a stadium that just about fits us.

Understandable if its not a sell-out though, they're the worst seats in the stadium.

If Sturridge keeps scoring then he'll be in the squad. Rightly so. Rooney will get in come what may. Welbeck has probably scored enough in Roy's eyes this season to earn himself a WC call. I reckon if RL had scored the second goal instead of hitting the post, there's simply no way he could have been dropped for the next game. As it is, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he doesn't make the next squad. I genuinely hope he does though, and makes the plane to Brazil.

Does this mean that the Lallana gay wave is now outlawed? What a tragedy.

It's definitely an unoriginal and copied one. Although that never seems to halt the genius of the Northam's literary minds.

During the game, true. At half time and trying to catch up on all the scores from around the divisions (and verifying that my accy's are once again going down the sh*tter), not so much.

The Premier League is naturally the place that all English sides will aspire to play in; but the Championship has many things that make it a more enjoyable league to be in for a number of fans, Sat-Tues-Sat games being just one of them.

Fair point, but you'd have to be a proper loon to be anything but ambivalent about this latest "sensation".

Why would people get angry? It would be a bizarre reaction. Its no difference to having www.saintsfc.com in the seat pattern (or flybe.com, for that matter...)

Calm down FFS.

Indeed, and it'll be impossible to ever revert to just having SAINTS written there by removing the # and fc white seats and replacing with red.

Not much difference between Saints and #saintsfc. #whatevs.