THOMAS MYHRE will complete a remarkable turnaround in fortunes with Sunderland tonight by retaining his place, despite the return to fitness of Mart Poom.
Poom will be involved in the squad that takes on the side propping up the whole of the Football League, Chester City, in the Carling Cup this evening after recovering from a back problem.
Myhre has not kept a clean sheet in the three games while the Estonian has been out, although he has made a number of good saves.
The Norwegian was blamed by some for Plymouth's early opening goal on Saturday, when Paul Wotton powered a free-kick from wide on the left.
But manager Mick McCarthy is ready to keep faith with Myhre, who now looks like staying at the club after a summer in which he was expected to leave.
"Thomas has been great for me. I've been delighted with him. All over the park I have competition for places and in goal is no different," said the Sunderland boss.
"I think Thomas was unfortunate at Plymouth. He could not have stopped any of the goals and he's made good saves for us since he came back into the side.
"As a goalkeeper he would have been thinking 'Have I done anything wrong?' But he hasn't and he's an international goalkeeper .
"The first goal at Plymouth got a flick from Steve Caldwell and I don't see how he was supposed to stop that free-kick. He had no chance at all and it's way off the mark to give him criticism."
After the first half horror show at Home Park, which cost Sunderland dear, McCarthy showed his players a video nasty in training.
Now, despite facing lowly opposition, he will stick with most of the side that lost to Plymouth in a bid to revive confidence in his ranks.
"I want to move on from my comments after Plymouth. It was the worst performance since I came but I've had my discussion with the players and that's it," said McCarthy, who is keen for his side not to go down the same path as last year, when they lost to Huddersfield early in the competition.
"The Chester game is a nice game to have if we win. You would expect that we do. We have to go about our business better.
"There will not be too many changes. I changed things last year against Huddersfield and we lost."
Ticket sales for tonight's match with the Nationwide Conference champions have gone poorly with a low crowd expected.
But McCarthy, keen to stress he will be fielding his strongest side, said: "If I can encourage fans to come it would be nice. They will be seeing the first team play, not the reserves. Confidence comes from winning games.
"The fans will not have been happy with Saturday and I suppose I have to apologise for that performance. We have to do better. We have watched the video and worked at it."
Full-back Mark Lynch will be given the chance to stake his claim for a starting place tonight and will fill in for Stephen Wright, who is out with a sprained ankle.
Since Lynch arrived from Manchester United the season has not gone according to plan, as Sunderland have won just one of their opening four Championship matches.
The versatile defender said: "It's not been the ideal start. We'd have wanted the points on the board and a better run of form but against Chester we will be pushing to put things right."
Lynch, who played in the Champions League for the Red Devils, will be making his first appearance in the competition tonight.
"I was involved in the squad before but I have never started in the League Cup. Last season Sir Alex Ferguson put his best defence out so I didn't get my chance."
As well as Wright, Sunderland will still be without George McCartney, Darren Williams, Ben Clark, Jeff Whitley, Colin Healy and Matt Piper through injury.
* Rangers declared themselves ''bitterly disappointed'' after UEFA upheld Alex Rae's five-match ban. The midfielder will miss tonight's vital Champions League qualifying second leg clash with CSKA Moscow, who arrive at Ibrox with a 2-1 lead.
Television pictures appeared to show Rae kick a grounded opponent in the head in the first leg.
Read more about Sunderland here.
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