00:00I hear from the Stadium of Light where Sunderland's final pre-season friendly has just ended in a 3-0 defeat to Rio Vallecano, which sounds kind of disastrous, but obviously there's a little bit more to it than that.
00:11First of all, Rio Vallecano finished 8th in La Liga last season, and I thought they were absolutely excellent, their intensity, their attention to the ball, their switches of play.
00:20They were just too strong really for a heavily reshuffled Sunderland XI.
00:23There were some definite positives from a Sunderland perspective in that Wilson Easton or Chris Rigg and Anthony Patterson were all fit to come back into the team.
00:30They've obviously had very little football, and to be fair, you could see that at times.
00:32Chris Rigg made an error for the first goal, kind of to be expected as it gets about up to match sharpness.
00:38So I'm not overly concerned. I actually thought there were a few little bright spots in Sunderland's play.
00:42I thought Dan Neal looked quite sharp. Enzo Lafayette, especially late on when Real Vallecano dropped off a little bit, played some really nice three passes and looked quite sharp.
00:52I know it sounds strange to be talking about positives after a 3-0 defeat, but the reality is that this was a really, really young defence.
00:58There was a lot of players out of position. Alan Brown and Harrison Jones down the left flank, both did a great job out of position,
01:03but two right-footed centre midfielders down the left wing. That's obviously going to limit you, make you a little bit predictable.
01:09And the reality is that Sunderland's stronger team, yesterday against Augsburg, which is going to be the core of that side,
01:15who plays against West Ham next weekend, played really well and got a deserved win against Bundesliga opposition.
01:19It was a little bit strange that that team played away and then this team played at home, so I can understand that.
01:24And the team today may be playing against a slightly stronger opposition, so that bit was a little bit odd.
01:29And for sure, it tells us a few things that we already knew about the squad.
01:33Real, real need to invest in to get some senior defenders in, especially at central defence.
01:39Of course, Arthur Masawaki coming in will help at left-back.
01:41That is an area where, at the moment, the depth just isn't there from a Sunderland perspective.
01:45As I say, I thought Neil and Lafayre showed that they can play a part and offer some depth in midfield.
01:50I still think Lafayre has got a massive part of play this season.
01:53So, obviously not how you want to end the pre-season programme.
01:56It looked pretty bad and it obviously does highlight a few deficiencies in the squad
02:00and shows the scale of the task ahead of us and go at the Premier League.
02:04But, as I say, we also need to keep a little bit of perspective.
02:06There were some positives over the course of the weekend.
02:09And good to see those players back on the pitch today, even if clearly they've got a lot of work to do
02:16to get up to full match sharpness, those returning injured players, before the Premier League starts.
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