Leroy on Sunderland, Zaza and those yellow cards

Obviously I couldn’t have been more pleased with last week’s win when at times we saw the team back to it’s very best with Aaron Cresswell playing a major part as I expected.

That he will not be on the pitch this weekend is a disgrace because  he was wrongly yellow carded twice in one of the most serious errors of judgement I’ve seen on a football pitch.

He should have had a penalty at the other end and for Zaha to get him sent off when all that happened was an arm across his face was disgusting.

If I’m walking down the street and someone puts an arm across my face I’m not gonna fall over.

It was ridiculous and horrible and the referee should be utterly ashamed particularly as he had denied him a spot kick two minutes earlier.

Beyond that we played some great football, scored a wonderful goal and had the luck we needed with a missed Benteke penalty.

So we come back to the London Stadium with plenty of confidence and I fully expect us to beat Sunderland – probably 2-0 – tomorrow.

We will go back to a flat back four in Cresswell’s absence with the two full backs pushing on and the two central defenders looking after the lone striker – Jermain Defoe.

I would expect that we will need to be patient but the plan AGAIN must be to get Payet and Lanzini on the ball as much as possible because they will have too much for the Black Cats defence.

Personally, despite the fact he ran about a bit more and some say he was improved, I’m not getting Simone Zaza one little bit at a possible £20 million.

For me £2 million would be too much, £200k or even a free. He gives us so little and simply has to score goals. That’s what a striker does for God’s sake. If he grabs a couple tomorrow I’ll happily eat my words but I can’t see t happening.

Sunderland will come to defend and hope that Defoe can capitalise on break aways but we should be too good for them. They have yet to win a Premier League game and I see no chance of that changing tomorrow.