As the days went by our “who’s doomed” poll slipped down the “Salut”front page until it dropped off the bottom like a relegated team.
By then over 3500 votes had been cast. Most came in flurries in the first couple of days and, although I suspect a strong contingent of Sunderland fans cast votes and tried to move us in the general direction of safety, the positions of the eight chosen clubs didn’t change, and nor did the percentages to any significant extent.
John McCormick writes: An e-mail from Pete Sixmith arrived today. A little further down my mailbox was a second e-mail, from M Salut, which surmised that Kone was ours no longer. A hasty check of Sunderland’s website provided no news but BBC’s red button told me he’d asked to leave, which put Pete’s post into some kind of context. Then I picked up an Everton site which said he was going to be offered a new contract.
Perhaps by the time you read this things will have clarified and Pete’s words, written before Janujaz signed yet still bearing enough news to whet our appetites (and perhaps raise our fears), will be moot.
Anyone who was paying attention will have noticed that the winning title among those suggested by readers for David Moyes’s post-game e-mails, which Salut! Sunderland will get round every matchday or soon afterwards to posting, was “Moyes on the Boys”.
So the author the phrase qualifies for the promised mug …
Salut! Sunderland is delighted to extend a warm welcome to Paddy McNair and Donald Love, our latest new recruits, whose much-touted transfers were finally announced by SAFC today.
None of the usual “undisclosed fee” nonsense; the club itself is happy to state the price – £5.5m to Manchester United for the pair, and you can bet your bottom dollar, pound or euro that the cost of the more experienced McNair took up the lion’s share of that total.
Mak, right, with the City-supporting former boxing champ Ricky Hatton at Wembley last season:
For our first Who are You? interview of the season, we turned to a Manchester City fanatic, Makahil ‘Mak’ Nuur, creator of the MCFC 1894 Twitter pages and, coming soon, podcast. His responses to our questions include a welcome prediction that David Moyes will do well for us – and a plea to Niall Quinn to be less mean to City on the telly …
Monsieur Salut invites all readers who are not members of the Salut! Sunderland Facebook group or followers on Twitter to put matters right …
When I checked a few minutes ago, the Facebook group had 658 members and the Salut! Sunderland account at Twitter had 1,968 followers. And of course there are those three million-plus visits we’ve received here since launching, very quietly, in 2007.
Not bad for what one Newcastle fan described here the other day as an “obscure Mackem site”.
Lamine Koné: would he get to keep the shirt as a souvenir (photo courtesy of SAFC)?
The loss of Lamine Koné would not only be a huge blow to Sunderland just as we were all hoping for a much better start to the season. If the fans’ worst fears are justified, it would also threaten to bring David Moyes’s honeymoon period to an abrupt end …
STOP PRESS UPDATE: Fans spoke to Koné after training today and the player said he had been “promised a new contract”, reinforcing his agent’s comment that none had been offered. When asked if he would like to remain at SAFC, he replied: “Yeah.”
While thanking Sunderland AFC for kindly sending an image of the new, rather impressive away top, I added a postscript: “Seeing who is wearing it makes me want to cry!”
Our designer Jake’s on the ball for the big kickoff
Another opening day looms and, by the skin of our teeth, Sunderland kick off a 10th successive season in the Premier League.
The new manager’s post-match e-mails will be given the title of Moyes on the Boys, a clear winner in the recent poll and suggested by a reader signing himself as JEL.
Will it be the Boys minus King Kone? As I write, it is looking grim but inconclusive. I tweeted that SAFC supporters had a right to expect our new manager to be fighting tooth and nail to keep him but if this Northern Echo report is to be believed, that may not be the case.
If we do lose perhaps the best centre back seen in Sunderland colours since Dave Watson, it will be a huge setback and the so far elusive inward business had better be good (though we must hope Moyes has found a gem in Papy Djilobodji).
