Sunderland U21s won 7-1 in Europe with Dennis Cirkin, Dan Neil and Luke O’Nien in the side
Sunderland Women head into Sunday's derby clash against Newcastle off the back of two painful WSL 2 defeats.
Sunderland Women manager Mel Reay has admitted Sunday’s Tyne-Wear derby against Newcastle United could be the perfect fixture to right the wrongs of recent defeats.
The Lasses have lost five of their last seven across all competitions and are winless during that time, with last week’s 3-2 defeat at home to Portsmouth particularly painful given they twice took the lead - including in the 79th minute - ultimately conceding two stoppage-time goals against a team reduced to 10.
There’s little time for Sunderland to lick their wounds, however, with a trip to St. James’ Park to face arch-rivals Newcastle coming up this Sunday.
Tyne-Wear derby the perfect tonic for Sunderland?
Sunderland trail the promotion spots by seven points and haven’t won since mid-September, and are preparing to face an opponent just one point and one place above them in the WSL 2 table.
As if that wasn’t motivation enough, a fixture against Newcastle could be just the catalyst Reay’s players need to get back on track.
“I’m hoping it is,” the manager responded when asked at a press conference if a derby match is the best tonic for Sunderland’s recent woes. “What a fixture to go and put it right. We can’t forget that we got beat twice by them last season as well, we have to remember that.
“I think there are a lot of good things that we’ve been doing, and I don’t think we can forget about that. We’ve shown some really good moments in our game that we can score goals, we can be a threat. We have got a really talented group. We have to go and showcase that on Sunday.”
On the motivation of the match being a local derby, Reay added: “I think it’s a bit of both. Yes, it’s a local derby, but also, we’re really hurting from the last two league games as well. So there’s almost a double reason why we have to go there and get a result.
“We’re piling pressure on ourselves by not picking up results, so we have to come together and make sure we get something on Sunday, to kick-start going into the other two league games before Christmas.”
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Sunderland ‘hurting’ after 2024/25 double Newcastle defeat
As Reay mentioned, Sunderland were twice beaten by Newcastle last season, going down by just a single goal on both occasions.
The ex-forward was asked if there is any sort of ‘revenge narrative’ in Sunderland’s mind heading into Sunday’s clash, and she admitted pain lingers from their rivals doing the double over them last campaign.
“We’re hurting off the two defeats, it’s a local derby, we have to show everyone what a Sunderland team is about,” Reay said, adding: “That’s fight, heart and desire, that we’re running hard for each other, that we’re coming together and showing the fans that are travelling to St. James’ Park that we mean business. We’re there to go and get points. We’re hungry for that and ready to put things right. That’s what we want people to see.”
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