Sunderland Vs Chelsea: Player Ratings

Simon Mignolet - 8

Did superbly in the first ten minutes to deny a couple of certain goals, and for the ones that did manage to make it past him there was very little that could be done. Sometimes you have to feel for him with such inept defenders in front of him.

Phil Bardsley - 4

An abysmal performance from everyone's favourite fist-pumper. Gave the ball away cheaply for Chelsea's first and his inability to control the ball lead to the second. Thankfully, it seems that many are now coming around to the fact he's not very good, and never really was.

John O'Shea - 5

Back from injury and came through 90 minutes. That's the good thing I suppose. The downside is he was also at fault on several occasions this afternoon. Caught watching and doing little for the first goal, and a misplaced clearance nearly yielded another goal.

Carlos Cuellar - 6

Didn't do a lot wrong, didn't really do a lot right either though. One who'll escape much criticism this weekend.

Danny Rose - 7

A quieter game than usual but continues to impress with him seemingly willing to help out the attack as much as the defence. One thing to keep an eye on with Rose is in times of struggle he's being pushed into central midfield ahead of Jack Colback.

Seb Larsson - 4

Largely anonymous for the entirety of the game before sealing our fate this afternoon by giving away a shocking penalty. It really was bad, and summed up a very, very poor performance from Larsson.

Craig Gardner - 5

Only slightly more prominent in the game than Larsson, and at least he didn't make any huge errors like his Swedish counterpart. Decent hit from a freekick near the end might have made us look more in it than we really were.

Adam Johnson - 7

Johnson was by far our most dangerous outlet today and despite some of his mazy runs not really going anywhere, he still managed to get himself on the scoresheet.

James McClean - 6

Not the worst, not the best from McClean - which is more than can be said of him in recent weeks. At times in the first half he was shocking and barely involved but grew into things in the second half and put in some decent balls.

Stephane Sessegnon - 5

Never got himself going I don't think. Didn't seem to be particularly up for it once it was apparent things were not going to go his way. Seemed to spend a hell of a lot of time away from Wickham, much as he does Fletcher. A serious failing of his game which needs to be rectified by either him or O'Neill sharpish.

Connor Wickham - 6

On the rare occasions we managed to string a few passes together, Wickham did well holding it up and bringing others into play. Can't really pinpoint anything he did wrong. Might be nice to see what he'd be like with semi-decent service as he did cause one or two problems today.

Jack Colback - 5

Came on was pushed to left-back as Danny Rose was preferred in central midfield. Didn't really find himself too involved in the game.

Louis Saha - 4

I thought Saha would be a good signing at the start of the season, but it's pretty clear to everyone now that he's utterly pointless.

Man Of The Match - Adam Johnson

Scored a goal, which his more than anyone else can say for themselves from our side of things. As we said above, at least he put himself about a bit and provided some genuine threat. A good game from him. If he can play this well every week we might just start to see some of the money paid for him returned in spades. As we must point out every week too, Danny Rose was also excellent. We just don't really want to turn this into the "Danny Rose Award" yet.