This season’s relegation poll went live at about 8.30 on Wednesday morning. By 2.30 some eighteen hundred votes had been cast. Hull received about a third of them and remained clear favourites. Burnley stayed in second place, although the gap had widened, and we had moved up to third. The other five clubs were well behind:
Month: August 2016
Sixer observes – what the new season has in store for Sunderland AFC
Certain events mark the progress of the year. For instance you know it’s August Bank holiday when Selfridges show off …
Bravo the Lads vs Dortmund and Fulham vs Newcastle, but keep Kone
Thank heavens for Pete Sixsmith‘s willingness to keep tabs on Sunderland from Busty Bank in Shildon – or, as in …
Transfer breakthrough finally – Salut! Sunderland welcomes Papy Djilobodji
Malcolm Dawson writes….I turned on my new internet enabled telly last night to watch the Lads play the final warm …
Excellent draw against Borussia Dortmund completes exemplary preseason run
We must rely on the official club site, and texts from Pete Sixsmith watching at home, for our knowledge of Sunderland’s resilient display in the final preseason friendly, against Borussia Dortmund in the woefully named Cashpoint Arena in Altach, Austria.
A powerful header from Lamine Kone, a man David Moyes must keep unless he has Charlie Hurley up his sleeve, kept the unbeaten summer record intact and gave strong reason for hope in spite of the ponderous progress on inward transfers. That – the failure to sign anyone – is surely about to change but for now, let us feed on the positives – and with any luck SAFC.com won’t mind either the properly credited use of an extract from its own report or the photo of the new away strip, which the club has in recent season been only too happy to provide in any case.
As results go, then, a satisfactory approach to our 10th successive season in the Premier League. Let us hope it is a good one, whether or not the current pattern of stats, bets and tips suggests SAFC can hope for the welcome rarity of a stress-free autumn, winter and spring …
Hull, Burnley, Bournemouth, Middlesbrough, Watford, Sunderland, West Brom or Crystal Palace. Choose your three
It was June 12th when I first put up this season’s relegation poll and July 1st, when the transfer window opened, that I gave you the preliminary results.
Every Premiership club received some votes. Man Utd got thirteen. Spurs and Arsenal (last relegated in the year the Royal Flying Corps established its first airfield) both got ten. Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea received six each, as did Stoke. West Ham were the second best fancied team, with four votes, while Everton received only two votes and are thus deemed most likely to stay in the top division (something they have managed every year since the end of rationing) but not entirely safe.
Given such wishful thinking I had to do some winnowing so I chose 100 votes as the cut-off, which gave me a reasonable number of 8 clubs to watch, and you can see the results in the title above.
As Moyes goes shopping, Salut! Sunderland stokes the rumour mill
Malcolm Dawson writes….aficionados of Vic Reeves Big Night Out in the early 90s will doubtless recall the Living Carpets. Basically …