Week after week, good news or bad, Pete Sixsmith faithfully texts scores, results and verdicts to Salut! Sunderland. Saturday was Chelsea avoidance day, and he got his updates from Abu Dhabi
Saturday found me absent from Stamford Bridge, so my observations are for once based on Match of the Day and what I have read in the various newspaper reports.
Colin, thousands of miles away in the UAE, saw it on TV and he was in the interesting position of texting the scores to me. I was dreading the sound of the mobile buzzing, so low were my expectations.
For once I was not disappointed. The reporter on Five Live dismissed us in four words – “hard working but limited” – and then spent the rest of his piece discussing whether Mourinho should manage England.
Sunday’s Observer wasn’t much better and suggested that a return to the Championship was in the offing if we did not sign the right players in January, while this morning’s Guardian focuses on Terry’s attitude and Miller’s foolishness at walking straight into a red card.