John McCormick writes: Our manager must be the master of substitutions, this time it’s Watmore and Ba who made the difference at the SOL. Gus gives them a special mention them in his e-mail to M salut and for once he’s happy, so maybe there’s hope for the future:
With one potential bananaskin avoided we find there’s another one to come. Was today’s game as comfortable as the Radio Newcastle commentary suggested and how did our debutants do? Pete Sixsmith is the man to tell us. Here’s his immediate post-match, seven-word verdict on a day when one North-East team kept the region’s cup hopes alive.
So, the 12th day of Christmas – and of Pete Sixsmith‘s look back at memorable games played over the Christmas/New Year period – can be said to have arrived. They think it’s all over. Ah, but Pete has a Baker’s Dozen in mind …
See the full series here: https://safc.blog/category/sixers-sentiments/sunderlands-twelve-days-of-christmas/
Well, how was everybody’s Christmas then? Can’t say I care too much, it’s just one of those generic questions you …
Pete Sixsmith nears the end of an entertaining series of recollections – or, in one or two cases, historical research – of matches played over the festive season. Atkinson, Davenport and Byrne are the names that counted in this game, the start of a run that finished with Sunderland’s last FA Cup Final …
See the full series here: https://safc.blog/category/sixers-sentiments/sunderlands-twelve-days-of-christmas/
Pete Sixsmith digs into the memory again to find a 10th Christmas period game about which he can reminisce as a safe alternative to slitting his wrists in despair at Sunderland’s latest act of shooting self in foot. Here he recalls one of the happy moments from Julio Arca’s time at the club …
After Sunderland’s decent Christmas, no one guessing the score versus Aston Villa saw what happened coming.
The losers were not only SAFC. The dispiriting performance was at odds with the optimistic predictions so donations promised by readers to Help the Heroes, the British Heart Foundation or Water Aid came to nought.
I am sure Eric Bowers, donor of his latest Guess the Score prize mug, would want the idea to continue until someone wins and hands over a little dosh to his or her chosen cause.
So have a go – whoever you support – at guessing the score in Sunday’s FA Cup game at home to Carlisle United.
Mark Nicholson*, located at Twitter, is a diehard Carlisle supporter who will join a sizeable army crossing west to east for Sunday’s FA Cup tie. What sort of Sunderland team he will see, with the leaue cup semis only two days later and a relegation battle to wage, is open to question. He’s a great admirer of the Sunderland old boy Graham Kavanagh, first as a player and now as manager of Carlise. All the same, he expects our class to make itself felt in the last 20 minutes …
Pete Sixsmith did say at the outset of this series that he would be dealing with some games he did not attend. The evidence is inconclusive but this may be one of them …
Malcolm Dawson writes….back in the not so dim and distant past, I was enjoying a pint in the Kings Arms …