Weakest link and three points needed

The mighty Martin Keown has been speaking and the Mail have thus quoted him:

'Gallas is the one who's getting caught. Opponents are having a greater desire to get to the ball.

'He's a quick, mobile defender but first and foremost what you want him to do is attack the ball.

'It's not coming off and as captain Gallas has to show more desire in such situations.'

I can't argue with that. I do think we should be careful not to make a scapegoat of Gallas. He does have his issues and he doesn't appear to be the perfect foil for Kolo, however to lump all the defensive blame at his door is unfair. Keown does not to do this of course, he is simply quoted out of context by the Mail's hack.

The point he does make is valid however, Gallas needs to be more aggressive and he needs to win more ball than he has done thus far this season. There are many other reasons behind our fallibility from set pieces including Toure's intermittent form and our small size throughout the side, it is simply unfair to blame Gallas for these problems as well.

The guardian show that the board do not live David Dein, that's a really big scoop for them. What did make fascinating reading was the Joe Kinnear interview, if one can call it that! I have to say I feel a lot of sympathy for Mr Kinnear and very little for the Mirror's hack Simon Bird. There are so many low life hacks out there who are all too happy to cast their divine judgement on others, they are happy to manipulate the truth to make a fast buck and progress their careers, while they care little for who they hurt along the way. Very few journalists live by the same ethical standards that they are happy to apply to those that they routinely judge.

Anyways I digress, the importance of three points tomorrow cannot be understated, we certainly cannot afford to drop any more points if we are to stay in touch with the top of the table. Alex Song is fit and must be a likely starter, while I hope the neat Nasri also takes to the field. Sunderland's home record isn't the greatest of late, so if we can keep it tight then I fancy our chances, that's not an insignificant 'if' though.