Here is the feature we introduced with the intention of getting readers talking.
Salut! Sunderland: the way it is is essentially your forum, a place to let off steam, make a point or raise an issue none of the site’s contributors has got round to writing about. It removes the need to wait for Sixer, Monsieur Salut, John Mac, Ken Gambles, Malcolm Dawson, Jeremy Robson or any of the the others to catch up on the news. We haven’t the resources to be any quicker.
So it is the place to comment on some topical event you may have heard about but not yet seen reported or analysed at Salut! Sunderland, a match we haven’t got round to recording the result of .. or indeed anything else, Sunderland or football generally related, on your mind.
In other words, it’s a chance to air your thoughts on as wide a variety of subjects as you wish without wondering whether the comment fits the posting.
There will still be the usual opportunity to comment at postings on specific topics. But Salut! Sunderland: the way it is will usually be kept at the top of the home page – https://safc.blog – so that it is one of the first things you see on arriving at the site by that route.
If The Way It Is seems to have disappeared, as it does from time to time, that is likely to be because something important has happened or is about to happen and the feature temporarily gets in the way. It will always be restored to the top of the home page once the excitement passes.
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from readers.
Same to you mate. Hope you had a good day, and another tomorrow. Three points from the Tigers would be a real boost.
12 players in the FB positions since the start of last season. Crazy! I knew I’d forget someone Malcolm. I blame the Christmas beer.
🙂 Merry Christmas Doc
Add Larsson to that as I believe he played at FB at one point last season. 11 players in 2 positions.
And Craig Gardner!
He has put part of the problem right and for me GP is doing a very good job in what are very difficult circumstances. He seems to like to have a striker playing wide on the left (and last season the same comments could have been made about Borini). I’m not sure why this applies to the left and not the right but like his predecessor he seems to favour having a left footed player on the right (Johnson), so the balance is there (if we can call it that).
I’m with Scotter (in part at least) about Wickham because you can talk about the performance and contribution of a striker until the cows come home, but the real measure is in the goals scored. Wickham doesn’t score anywhere near enough. It’s not as if he is creating them for others either. Having said all that he is a considerable improvement on Altidore, and that may be why some people are cutting CW more slack than he really deserves.
We really need to keep Coates if at all possible because the team is being ripped apart and rebuilt all the time. We lost Celustka, and Alonso, and Barsdsley from the FB positions last season and we can only build if we can keep a good unit together. In the FB positions since the beginning of last season we have used Celustka, Vergini, Bardsley, Jones, O’Shea, Brown, Revelliiere, Alonso and Van Aanrnholt and possibly Colback. That’s just a ridiculous number of players to fill 2 positions.
I seem to remember Brian Clough saying that the first thing he did as manager at Derby and Forest was to build a team that were hard to beat. Once that was sorted he would think about attacking options.It looks to me that Gus is following that advice.
In the next transfer window I think he wil add to our defensive options with a youngish central defender like Van Djik ,and a full back….maybe Byram from Leeds who we were linked with in the summer.I have a feeling that he will have another go at getting Borini or a Borini type of player. Those three players IMO would give us pretty useful squad.
Good question and point, Alan. I think it’s clear Connor is not comfortable in that role. trouble is you can have only one hit-and-miss main striker (as opposed a little-and-large act a la Quinn/Phillips) and Fletcher is in better goalscoring form. I would still not be surprised to see both CW and Altidore gone in the January window but would accept it only if Poyet and Congerton have replacement(s) lined up
I think there isn’t room for all three strikers in our current style of play. Jozy is quite clearly out of his depth ,but we do need a back up striker to cover when the main striker is out injured.
If SF is our main striker then CW should be a bench warmer ,but he is too expensive for that so GP is trying to fit him in where best he can.Ideally the back up striker should be an up and coming youngster like Mandron for example providing of course he is good enough. During the Quinn and Philips era we had Bridges who could fit in when er either were unavailable
However to make our system more effective we need more goals from midfield. If you look at Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea over the past few seasons a high percentage of their goals come from Gerard,Toure and Lampard…..all mid fielders. Of course finding a couple of goalscoring midfielders is easier said than done.
Is anyone else a little worried about Gus’s insistance on playing Connor Wickham out wide on the left? I have been trying to work it out and can only come to the conclusion that is a contractual necessity rather than a playing one. Giving Wickham playing time now, getting him to sign a new contract and then playing a winger in that position once its done seems the only reason to play him at all. And lets be honest, he aint that good! Anywhere! Play players where they are bought to play and get rid of overpriced and over hyped average players.
Interesting that the terms “overpriced” and “over hyped average players” are used in a piece on Connor Whickham.
If we have truly given him a contract worth £60k per week what scintillating performances have I missed this season?
What on earth justifies a long term contract which costs SAFC £17m +???
Can the words English, young and potential ever underpin such an outlay?
I am glad we kept the lad (apart from the cost) but he needs a lot of work even though he might not realise it himself. His ball control is not up to PL standard and his retention of the ball is poor for his size and bulk. The 2 or 3 incidents in the last match where he threw himself to the ground in the opponents box suggest his decision making is poor.
I don’t see much improvement from his Ipswich days.
No doubt the spinners will say SAFC took the decision because leading clubs were sniffing around– but wasn’t that the Ipswich line?
Hope he scores a hat trick on Saturday to assuage my misgivings.
I agree Scotter, but it could be argued that in just a few games at the back end of last season he won the club a lot more then £17million.
Also, tying him up means that any club that comes in for him will have to make a huge offer, much more than the compensation that would have had to be paid if he’d been out of contract.
He’s improved but nowhere near the finished article. Hopefully he will continue to improve and repay the faith the club has in him.
Comments are open. The most recent in this feature appeared at https://safc.blog/2014/08/the-way-it-is-plus-scores-as-they-happen/ after which the file began to drift down the pecking order. New comments should go here.