We are not about to enter Man’s First Steps on Moon territory, but it is a small achievement of which we are mightily proud: yesterday, the hit rate of 3,500+ took Salut! Sunderland for the first time into the top 10 of the Soccerlinks hitlist.
OK, it was “into the top 10” in the same way that Sunderland climbed “into the top 10” of the Premier last season. In other words, we reached 10th place. We’ve hovered just below for a while, and often enough plunge back into the 20s and 30s when the site is quiet, but to reach the top 10 at all makes all the time and effort that go into the site seem worthwhile.
Follow the link above by all means but do not be surprised to find we’ve slipped out again.
A big Arsenal site, The Gunning Hawk, will not take kindly to us taking its place and can be expected to do all it can to leapfrog us; behind them, breathing down everyone’s necks, are highly popular sites on Brazilian, Spanish, Italian and – as you must have guessed – Macedonian football.
Ahead in the charts? Real Madrid, more Arsenal, Chelsea, non-league (not once but twice), Portugal and world football. So competition is tight. Reaching such dizzy heights does not mean we are, even for a short time, the 10th biggest football site around since Soccerlinks can only list the sites that wish to be listed. It feels good all the same and has been achieved even though the Soccerlinks stats show consistently lower visitor rates for this site than the Statcounter reports we use ourselves.
To get the best out of Salut! Sunderland, click here for the home page and bookmark it. That way, you see all the most recent articles …
And it also feels good to read the enthusiastic thoughts of Stéphane Sessegnon, a player we will do very well to hang onto for a while and for whom we should be doing all we can to remove any lingering feeling of being unsettled, as one or two reports suggested, in the North East.
Here is what he said to, or is quoted as saying by, the Evening Chronicle, starting off with the two fabulous goals, his and Craig Gardner’s, to beat Swansea:
There is a lot of confidence in the team at the moment, which is why we are trying shots like that.
It was a super strike from Craig because it made sure we won the game. I cannot shout about my goal too much because both goals were good.
There have been some really good goals recently. Seb Larsson has scored a few and Craig’s against Swansea, so I don’t know where mine ranks. The ball arrived and I took the chance to have a shot. I should have had a second in the second half with my head when it went just wide.
I just hope to continue helping us finding the net and winning games.
And he even sounded up for the cup: “It provides something different and we have ambitions to get to the next round, particularly with this tie being at home. We must continue this run of form and why cannot we have the goal of winning a cup?”
Sess has proved a terrific buy – he must have quadrupled his value with his performances for us – and we must hope he is still at the club when, indeed long after Salut! Sunderland reaches its second million of “hits” (current total around 1.4m).
And Salut! has not one but two cracking interviews with high-profile Boro fans coming up in the next couple of days. Mark, in comments below, says we must be getting “an awful lot right: but every Salut! Sunderland reader must feel free to say what we’re getting wrong …
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Totally agree, Jeremy. Even in the later Bruce era, whilst others seemed undisciplined and lacking direction, his professionalism and skill were outstanding. I wonder if his lack of height doesn’t spur him on to try harder sometimes. At first I thought that his height might be an issue, but he manages to transcend it and with Bendtner replaced, I think he would prove to be even more effective.
I just hope his wife could be persuaded to change her mind about the North East.
It only seems to have been over the last three weeks that Sessegnon has been getting the praise that he has deserved since he first arrived. A lot of our fans were saying that he shoots when he shouldn’t and there is no end product etc, etc, etc. The fact is that he has to cope with Bendytoy up there alongside him which is not too different to being asked to play as the loan striker (which isn’t his game). Sess has been magniificent since he arrived and has barely put a foot wrong.
Still 10th at 2230 GMT. Congrats. You’re obviously doing an awful lot right, Colin.
There’s a piece in The Indepenent today. I’ll try to link it, but not too sure how to do it. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/five-asides-what-we-learnt-at-the-weekend-6293624.html. Basically it says that Sess is “perhaps the leagues most watchable footballer”. His goal at the weekend was “perfect, but quite typical of his recent standards” and “he is among the league’s most charming players”. Praise indeed but well deserved.
I’ve got a further 5 laptops in the house. Do I have to veiw SS on each one a least once a day now? Instructions please.