No immediate post-match report today. Just as well; being made to look decidedly second best at home to West Brom was not the way to burst free from all the gloom. When we finally went behind, having led twice, Gary Bennett admitted we “looked all over the place … a beaten team” before asking his BBC Radio Newcastle co-commentator: “Where did it all go wrong, Nick?”
As usual, we’ll have plenty to say. And Pete Sixsmith‘s incisive seven-word verdicts capture the essence of just about every Sunderland game. When, rarely, Pete is absent, a supersub does it for him. The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – encapsulates the matchday experiences, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, of a fan who is usually there …
April 9 2011 SAFC (2) 2 West Bromwich Albion (2) 3 All our weaknesses horribly exposed: totally inept
April 3 2011 Manchester City (2) 5 SAFC (0) 0 No shape, no fight, heading for oblivion
March 20 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Liverpool (1) 2 Liverpool better, but crucial decisions against us
March 5 2011 Arsenal (0) 0 SAFC (0) 0 Take your pick: A solid performance to be proud of or Better than Barca as we thwart Gunners
Feb 26 2011 Everton (2) SAFC (0) Were never in the game; easily beaten
Feb 12 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Tottenham Hotspur (1) 2 Beaten by side one step above us
Feb 5 2011 Stoke City (1) 3 SAFC (1) 2 Take your pick: Horrible result against a truly horrible team or A refereeing performance that defies reasonable analysis
To see Sixer’s Sevens in full, click here. If an asterisk precedes the comment, the words that follow are the work of someone else because Pete is for once absent from the game or his verdict has been delayed …