Team News

Blues have no new injury worries so could name the same side that drew against Everton.

Andy Reid, Kenwyne Jones and Lee Cattermole could all be available to Sunderland who will be missing Lorik Cana due to suspension.

Last Meeting

The last meeting was in October and was notable for being the first of our fifteen game unbeaten run. Blues went two up early in the second half with goals by Liam Ridgewell and James McFadden and were cruising until Scott Dann scored an own goal with seven minutes to go to get us all nervous again. The last meeting at the Stadium of Light took place in January 2008 and ended 2-0 to Sunderland. I watched this game in an English pub in Barcelona called the George and Dragon and remember it being a particular poor Blues performance. The pub was good though. Well worth a visit if you are in the area and fancy watching some football. It’s just north of Place Catalunya.

Recent Form

Sunderland’s form has recovered of late after having been on a long winless run. They are unbeaten at home since losing to Villa in December although they tend to draw more than they win.

Blues have had an up and down few weeks with three wins, two losses and one draw in their last six league games and the disappointing cup exit at Portsmouth.

They have only won one of their last six away games.

Outlook

So it’s another trip up north for the start of what will be a run of difficult games. This game is followed by a trips to Blackburn and Man City and home games against Arsenal and Liverpool. If we are going to get anything from those games then this will be a good a chance as any. As we enter the final stretch of what has been an excellent season the target now is for a top ten finish and to beat the Premiership record of fifty points that we achieved in 2004. With Sunderland being the league’s draw specialists the first of those seven required points should be collected tomorrow.

The key to stopping Sunderland will be to cut off the supply to Bent and Jones which we managed so well back in October. Then it will be up to the newly reunited pair of Benitez and Jerome to cause problems up front to open up scoring opportunities. Jerome has recently regained his scoring touch and I’m sure it is no coincidence that of the eleven goals that the pair have scored, seven have been away. They get more space to use their pace when not at St Andrews and while eleven goals is not a great return they do make opportunities for others. The experiment of playing McFadden up front looks to have been shelved for now. Let’s hope the defence can also recover the solidity of earlier in the season. Last week at Everton they did look particularly shaky at times.

As I said earlier a draw is the most likely so I’ll go for that.

Sunderland 1 Blues 1 – Benitez to score.