Hello and welcome to the Sunderland AFC live blog for Thursday, April 4.
Jack Ross and his Black Cats side put their Wembley defeat to Portsmouth on Sunday behind them, beating Accrington Stanley on Wednesday.
A 3-0 win saw Aiden McGeady, Will Grigg and Kazaiah Sterling grab goals.
But Sunderland can't afford to dwell on it for too long. April is a busy and huge month for the Black Cats' season, with eight games to come as Ross' side chase promotion.
Stick with us for all of the latest Sunderland AFC news, views and gossip throughout the day.
Get involved in the conversation - follow us on twitter at @ChronicleSAFC , on facebook at chroniclesafc or on instagram at chroniclesafc .
Accrington 0-3 Sunderland
Signing off
That’s all for today. Here’s the top stories to close with:
- Pay-off in Darron Gibson’s Sunderland sacking, as agent’s fees exceed transfer fees again
- Accrington Stanley owner hits back at Sunderland over beamback at the Stadium of Light
- Sunderland pass post-Wembley character test with flying colours at Accrington Stanley
- Accrington Stanley 0-3 Sunderland analysis: Show of squad strength puts Black Cats back on track
Agent fees revealed
Sunderland have eclipsed their League One rivals in fees paid to agents this season. Sunderland paid £2,873,033 in the period between 1 February 2018 and 31 January 2019, in figures released by the FA.
That eclipses any side in League One, with the second highest being Barnsley who spent £428,580.
How does Sunderland's run in compare to their rivals?
Leapfrogging Barnsley with two games in hand? Yes please!
Posh ticket details
SAFC travel to Peterborough on Easter Monday.
The club have received an allocation of 4,069 and tickets will be available to purchase from Friday 5 April.
Adult tickets are priced at £26 while over-60s are available for £21. It’s £17 an for under-22 match ticket, £10 for under-18s, £7 for under-12s and £1 for under-7s.
All tickets will go on sale via the Black Cats points system and each phase is subject to availability…
- 9am-4:30pm on Friday 5 April – 30+ Black Cat points.
- 9am-4:30pm on Tuesday 9 April – 10+ Black Cat points
- 9am-4:30pm on Wednesday 10 April – 0 Black Cat points
- 9am - General sale on Thursday 11 April
Sunderland release gender pay gap details
From April 2017, all organisations that employ over 250 employees are required to report annually on their gender pay gap. Sunderland comment in theirs:
Sunderland AFC’s workforce consists of more higher-salaried males than females. This profile reflects the industry and our gender pay gap results should be considered within the context of this distribution as this has a significant influence on our overall gender pay gaps.
In comparison to last year the mean gender pay gap of 71.3% has improved by 13.8%, and the median gender pay gap by 2.5%.
The results are:
- Mean gender pay gap in hourly pay 71.3%
- Median gender pay gap in hourly pay 13.3%
- Mean gender bonus pay gap 92.1%
- Median gender bonus pay gap 85.6%
- Proportion of males receiving bonus 6.8%
- Proportion of females receiving bonus 5.6%
The full report can be found here: https://www.safc.com/news/club-news/2019/april/gender-pay-gap-reporting-2019
John Coleman reacts
The Accy boss said:
They’re a good side. But you know, they’re coming here on the back of a harsh defeat at Wembley, which would have been confidence and energy sapping.
“Then they get a shot of adrenaline. You can’t give a player of Aiden McGeady’s ability time and space to get the ball, walk inside unopposed and get a ball in from 20 yards. It’s a great finish.
“They were very, very good for half an hour for that. We had our hands full to stay in the game which we did, we had a good chance that Billy [Kee] put over the bar.
“They were comfortably the better side in the first half but if we go in at 1-0 then it’s a completely different game. To concede the way we did, we got a let off a minute earlier with a ball over the top, if you defend like that you’ll get punished at every level but certainly when you’ve got good players, £3 million strikers, you expect to get punished.”
Pickford unlikely to be prosecuted
According to a report in the Daily Mail, Jordan Pickford has apologised to the off-duty bouncer he gave a black eye to in a fracas in Sunderland on Sunday evening and he is unlikely to face criminal prosecution for the incident.
Happy birthday Aiden McGeady
A nice memory of his first of 22 goals for Sunderland so far. This one’s a cracker as have most of his strikes been - particularly last night!
Man City fail to sell out Wembley allocation
They play Brighton at Wembley in the FA Cup semi final on Saturday.
According to reports they’ve returned 2,000 tickets to the FA and a further 3,000 remain unsold.
City fans’ argument is that the 5.30pm kick-off makes it awkward for travel for fans, while some of the tickets are also costing as much as £90!
Jack Ross on Kazaiah Sterling's goal
The SAFC boss said:
He has taken a while to adjust in terms of how we train and what we do, it is a big jump to be in the first team environment.
“It has been difficult with the Checkatrade ineligibility, a bit stop start for him but this was a chance to be on the park and I had a feeling he would score given how stretched the game was.
“It was a good finish from Kaz, a big moment for him.”
When is Jack Ross' press conference this week?
With everyone travelling back from Accrington today, it won’t take place at its usual time of 1.30pm today.
Instead, Ross will speak pre-Rochdale at 9am tomorrow morning.
Dundee boss rues Ethan Robson's miss
Dundee lost 2-0 to St Johnstone last night, with SAFC loanee Ethan Robson missing a great change with the score at 1-0. Jim McIntyre said after:
“When you are on a run like this it can kill the confidence.
“The players kept at it second half and we got a brilliant chance through Robson.
“He knows he should score and it was one of the better moves of the match.
“Then we lost another goal.”
Jordan Pickford unlikely to face prosecution for bar brawl
The former Sunderland goalkeeper got into trouble in Sunderland over the weekend.
Jordan Pickford has apologised to the bouncer he gave a black eye in a pub brawl on Sunday and is likely to avoid prosecution.
The England and Everton goalkeeper punched Andy Dewar by mistake when the off-duty security guard was trying to pull the 25-year-old away from a scrap.
Dewar has accepted Pickford’s apology and decided against taking legal action.
Portsmouth chief praises Sunderland fans
Eric Eisner, Pompey board member and son of owner Michael Eisner, praised Sunderland fans after Sunday’s Checkatrade Trophy final but joked ‘they took Trafalgar Square, we took Wembley.’
The Sunderland fans were right by our hotel!
We didn’t come out flashing our Pompey stuff, although I had my hat for a while, but then you start talking to them and they were all very nice.
They weren’t causing trouble.
I thought the Sunderland fans were great.
Walking around Wembley on the Saturday, mixing and mingling with them, they were fantastic.
Some of their fans gatecrashed our little get together on Sunday night. When players started to drift out, they came over and joined us.
It was absolutely brilliant, they kept wanting to buy us drinks, congratulating us. What a lovely gesture that was.
The same goes for those in charge of the club and Jack Ross and his backroom staff, fantastic people.
Sunderland is a really, really great club from top to bottom.
To a degree, I think that made the victory that much more special, they are one of the big clubs in the country.
And, inside Wembley, it was a great achievement to beat them.
For large parts of the second half we were losing – and you wouldn’t expect the losing team’s support to be as loud as the winning team during the game.
Yet our fans were amazing, they kept on going throughout.
Credit where it’s due, though, Sunderland are right up there as one of the most passionate sets of fans in the country.
So to go head-to-head with them in regards of the singing and the passion was no mean feat.
This wasn’t a club with a load of plastic fans, this was a real, proper football club – like Portsmouth.
We let them take Trafalgar Square, but we took Wembley.
Stephen Elliott loving Sunderland playing with two forwards
The former Black Cats striker said:
2 league games in a row Grigg scores. The fact that Wyke is on pitch for both tells a lot. I understand the need for 5 in MF at times but with two forwards with real quality at this level I would rather let teams worry about both them rather than isolate 1 of them
John Coleman's post-match thoughts
The Accrington boss says ‘very good’ Sunderland were by far the ‘better team’ last night.
Sunderland show their strength in depth
Analysis from last night’s 3-0 win at Accrington as fringe players Denver Hume, Dylan McGeouch and Charlie Wyke showed their worth.
Ross on McGeady's injury
He said:
It was a knock to his foot/ankle area from the tackle on him fairly early on in the corner.
“It wasn’t a case of taking him off because we were 2-0 up, he wouldn’t have been able to continue anyway.
“It’s not ultra-serious but he was struggling with his mobility towards the end of the half and we’ll see how he is in the morning.
“He’s been carrying a few knocks recently, to be honest, and it is to his credit that he keeps dragging himself through them.”
Welcome
Hello and welcome to today’s live blog where we will be bringing you plenty of reaction to last night’s win. Here’s some of our content:
