SUNDERLAND PREVIEW

The now customary pre-season fixture versus Sunderland takes place on Saturday at the Arena and will be the first chance Darlington fans will get to see a new manager and new players in action for the club.

Since a football was last kicked, Darlo have dispensed with two managers, or rather they have dispensed with Darlo. Out go Simon Davey and Ryan Kidd and in comes Mark Cooper.

Of course some of the new signings will be well known by the Quakers faithful and after last seasons turmoil it will be refreshing to see some players who have an affinity to the club that the supporters can identify with.

Back to the club come former goalkeeper Sam Russell, midfielder Jamie Chandler along with strikers Tommy Wright and Liam Hatch. Joining them will be new faces in goalkeeper Kelvin Jack, left-back Dominik Werling, centre-half Danny Hone, utility-man Michael Brough and forward Chris Senior.

As well as being known by the Darlington fans, Jamie Chandler is also no stranger to the Sunderland fans and staff, for he spent 11 years with them before leaving in the summer in search of regular first team football. Hopefully what is Sunderland's loss will be Darlington's gain and as someone who needs little motivation for a game, Jamie will be planning on showing Sunderland what they are missing.

Mark Cooper will be looking to give most of his squad a run out over the course of the 90 minutes and will also field a couple of as yet un-named trialists.

One man who wont be involved is Adrian Forbes. Forbes has been given permission by Grimsby boss Neil Woods to train with Darlington as he's not in Grimsby's plans, but this has stopped short of being allowed to play in a match situation, Woods said "They wanted to play him in a game but we wouldn't allow that, for obvious reasons." Instead he will be turning out for the Mariners as they travel to Boston tonight.

As far as the Sunderland team news goes, a strong line-up will be named for the game, with a squad of 19 first-teamers making the short trip down the A1.

New Egyptian signing Ahmed Al-Muhammadi will make his debut for Sunderland, the right-sided defender signed on a season-long loan from Egyptian Premier League side ENPPI.

Last seasons 24-goal striker Darren Bent will line-up for his first outing of the season, Bent who feels he was unlucky to not be named in Fabio Capello's World Cup squad was not pencilled in to play originally but he's shown a desire to be involved and will play at least 45 minutes.

There will however be a couple of notable absentees for Sunderland in manager Steve Bruce and goalkeeper Craig Gordon. Bruce had committed to a charity event some months ago along with Chairman Niall Quinn, so assistant Eric Black will lead the Sunderland charges for Saturday's game. Gordon's awful run of luck for Sunderland continued yesterday when he broke an arm for the second time in eight months having only just recovered from a hernia operation.

Martin Waghorn whom Colin Todd tried to sign and then subsequently tortured us in the 4-0 friendly defeat last season will also be missing through an injury sustained in their last game versus Munster.

One man that Todd did manage to borrow last season was winger Jordan Cook, and he will play a part after recovering from a cruciate ligament injury which cut his loan spell short.

The stadium concourse will be open from 1.30pm so fans are encouraged to head down early and make the most of what should be a lievely atmosphere. Tickets are priced £10 and £5 for concessions.

For those that can't make the game, Uncovered will be publishing a full report, hopefully with plenty of positives from a good performance.

Submitted by: Divas

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Visit the forum to add your own comments - the submissions so far are shown below:

TeessideQuaker - 16th July 2010 16:39:10

It'll be interesting to see how we get on against what seems to be a pretty decent Sunderland side. Fitness is obviously going to be the most important issue here, but it'd be nice to half a relatively close game for the players confidence.

divas - 16th July 2010 18:37:12

Given Coopers good cup pedigree I think he'll have the lads fired up.All I ask is that they show some fight and have a go like cooper has promised. I've got a sneaky feeling it may be anything but friendly tomorrow

uncovered - 16th July 2010 21:14:12

Sunderland name their squad for tomorrows game

Sunderland (from): Bardsley, Bent, Campbell, Carson, Cattermole, Colback, Al-Muhammadi, Ferdinand, Henderson, Jones, Kilgallon, Liddle, McCartney, Malbranque, Mignolet, Richardson, Tounkara, Weir, Zenden

jjmick - 16th July 2010 21:17:29

1st team

JE93 - 17th July 2010 07:15:16

will be good to see if the investment in the new pitch was worth it and hopefully we will have a perfect pitch to kick off the season

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