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Luke Edwards is Chief Sports Writer of The Journal and uses his blog to give a unique and entertaining insight into events at Newcastle United and Sunderland.

As well as football, Luke also regularly takes a wry look at the biggest sports stories from across the North-East and beyond. From cricket to rugby and basketball to boxing, some are criticised and some are praised.

Sometimes provocative, sometimes laugh-aloud funny, but always interesting Luke Who's Talking also gives you the chance to interact with Luke and have your say on all the major sporting issues.

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No More Mr Nice Guy?

Posted by Luke on September 23, 2006 9:23 PM | 

Sunderland have lost for the first time under Roy Keane and although there were no earthquakes, or even the sound of smashing plates, I can tell you the Black Cats boss was far from happy with his players after the 3-1 defeat at Ipswich.

How do I know? By looking at the players after the game of course. Neill Collins looked a funny shade of grey when he came out of the dressing room, Dean Whitehead looked white and Stanislav Varga looked completely disorientated - a bit like he was for Ipswich's third goal.

Grant Leadbitter spent 10 minutes running around the centre circle on his own in some sort of strange warm down routine and Dwight Yorke - not for the first time - preferred to keep what had happened behind closed doors out of the papers.

It must have been difficult for Keano on Saturday. Not only had he seen his team produce their worst performance since he became manager, he also had to cope with a load of really brave Suffolk folk shouting abuse from the safety of the stands. Easy to say 'Sit Down Shut Up' to someone when you're an anonymous face in the crowd isn't it!

Portman Road erupted at the final whistle as if Ipswich had just won promotion. As the fans cheered in the stands the players embraced each other on the pitch and I might even have seen their manager Jim Magilton doing a little dance as he headed down the tunnel.

And that just sums up the size of the task ahead of the Black Cats and their high-profile new manager this season. Mick McCarthy used to claim Sunderland were the biggest scalp in the Championship, now that Keane is manager thay actually are.

Everyone will raise their game against them, opposition fans will crank up the atmosphere and the rest of the country will watch in hope that Keane's men slip up.

No wonder Keane took on the challenge as his first job in management, it's just like playing for Manchester United!

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Comments (3)

Snapper wrote...

Problem is Sunderland are a small team who have always thought they were big, but big teams don't go up and down like yo yo's.

Posted by: Snapper  | September 26, 2006 4:33 PM

Snapper wrote...

Problem is Sunderland are a small team who have always thought they were big, big teams don't go up and down like yo yo's.

Note from Luke
So pleased with this you sent it to me twice!

Posted by: Snapper  | September 26, 2006 4:34 PM

Snapper wrote...

Sorry Luke. For the benefit of Makems, you always have to tell them things twice.

Note From Luke
I'm not getting involved!

Posted by: Snapper  | September 26, 2006 4:47 PM

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