You will go a long way to find a better buildup to the Wear-Tyne derby than here. Hands up the man who said, ‘you would say that, wouldn’t you?’.
But truly, we’ve had two pretty good “Who are You?’ interviews, a Guess the Score, a statistical review of the history of Wear-Tyne derbies and a well-argued debate on the jail sentence imposed on the Newcastle horsepuncher.
You can see all that by going to the home page – https://safc.blog – and navigating from there.
If there is still appetite, you can also go to ESPN, where Monsieur Salut, and occasionally Sixer, offer their thoughts on all things Sunderland.
This is the place:
http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/sunderland/id/2259?cc=5739
This is the extract from the the pre-Derby piece:
In reality, the final score could confound expectations, which necessarily means a home win of any kind, or be a less surprising away romp. Or it could depend on a disputed sending-off or penalty. Sunday’s referee, Lee Probert, awarded one of each, red card and penalty – though entirely undisputed – the last time he officiated in a Sunderland game, both decisions arising from the same incident at Crystal Palace.
We didn’t get round to discussing the SAFC chaplain’s heartfelt appeal to the Pope for some divine intervention in the progress, or regress, of Sunderland (as if he could help us).
But from Saturday night’s league table, at the bottom end, comes a smidgeon of encouragement.
15 Cardiff 9 2 3 4 8 13 -5 9
16 West Ham 8 2 2 4 8 8 0 8
17 Stoke 9 2 2 5 6 10 -4 8
18 Norwich 9 2 2 5 6 13 -7 8
19 Crystal Palace 9 1 0 8 6 19 -13 3
20 Sunderland 8 0 1 7 5 20 -15 1
A win against Newcastle takes us off bottom, always a good move. but even without one we are no further away from a non-relegation spot than Man Utd are from the first place they regard as theirs of right. And whereas eight points more for us would take us above all the clubs on eight points, but with better goal differences than ours, Man Utd would still have that factor to deal with: Arsenal’s GD is 11, ManU’s an unbelievable two.
Let us hope Sunderland can finally come good. It’s a tall order. NUFC seem to have more pace and skill. But they are as frail as us at the back and we can surely exploit that.
Ha’way the Lads and Ha’way Gus: put a smile on our faces tomorrow afternoon.
“Can it get any worse. We’re after a bloke called Fanni”
I’ve not heard about this one Eric. Don’t we have a few of those we should be getting rid of first, before we get any new ones?
Can it get any worse. We’re after a bloke called Fanni.
I take comfort in cliche’s in a time like this . Form goes out of the window in a derby, it’s a two horse race, Sunderland always win when you don’t expect them to. Well , only the latter has being blown out of the water this season so lets wish on Bud’s health that the first two are holding firm!
There’s nothing to find in the way of encouragement from looking at recent results. They all suggest that we are in for a complete pounding,. which is the very reason we may win 1-0.