Page 36 - 370167 LP253351 A Love Supreme Magazine - A5 48pp (Issue 260) v2

QUICK CATCH UP WITH... GORDON ARMSTRONG
If you’re going to ask someone about the way things are going at Sunderland, why not ask someone who loves the club, has scored 61 goals in 416 games for us, and whose portrait hangs on the stairs at the SoL as one of our all-time top ten appearance makers? Only Gordon Armstrong meets those criteria, so we asked him.
We’ve quite rightly raved about Clarke’s goal at Reading, but we’ve scored a few others that have been nearly as good, playing out right from the back and just flying through the opposition, and whoever has come into the team has played their part. They’ve all come in and given their all, there’s been no real disappointments, and we’ve just got to keep it going, obviously getting Ross back is a big boost. I’m not that concerned that our biggest midfielder is Evans, and he’s not that big, because we can really play with the ball at our feet. Ev- ery time I’ve been to games I’ve not seen anything to really concern me, and I’ve only come away disappointed with the general play a couple of times. I’ve been to most of the home games and enjoyed them all to
a degree because of the way the team go about things. Even in the Burnley game we played good stuff for a half, but we were up against a team that was in the Premier League six months ago, and Norwich showed that little bit of class to win, but to be honest we were the better side against them. So, I think it’s all been pretty positive. I know we’re going to get bad results now and then, and we’ll be up and down a little bit, but they’re all showing a great attitude and willingness to work for our club, you can’t ask anything more, really. I think the
How do you think the season’s gone so far?
Pretty well, I think, especially away from home. We’ve got some pace and play some great counter-attacking stuff, and you can’t argue with five away wins by this stage. For me, Clarke and Roberts are players we expected to do well, and they have, especially Clarke. Stewart had obviously made the step up and was doing really well before he got injured and was a big loss. Danny Batth has been superb, probably the pick of our defenders. The keeper’s done great, he was inexperienced but he’s a really confident young lad we didn’t know much about who’s stepped in and looks the business. Per- haps O’Nien is the one who we wondered about in terms of making the step up to this level, but he’s shown that he’s not been fazed by the Championship at all, and he’s done well wher- ever he’s played. For a lad who’s not that tall, he’s good in the air and he’s done well along- side Batth, so he’s been a little bit of a pleasant surprise. In more recent games, we’ve seen Diallo, and he has all the skill and he’s been really putting the other teams under pressure. He can be a real-world beater, but I think all our wide players are all like that, Clarke, Roberts, Bennette. On their day, when you’ve got young, hungry players, who’ve gone about things the right way and shown the right attitude, they’re the future. Those kids that we’ve brought in all look very promising.
36 | ALOVESUPREME | ISSUE260