Year: 2016

Swansea v SAFC Guess the Score: and two competitions produced one winner

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Jake: 'anything Oxford can do ....'
Jake: ‘anything Oxford can do ….’

Monsieur Salut writes: this is indeed the Swansea City v Sunderland AFC Guess the Score. From this game onwards, temporarily at least, we revert to ‘for fun only’. We will still come up with competitions whenever sponsors appear on the scene and it goes without saying that any reader who knows a potential candidate/business should get in touch. And in the meantime, have a go anyway …

We asked you to Guess the Score in the Arsenal FA Cup match, with a prize at stake for the last time unless and until a new sponsor comes along to replace Personalised Football Gifts, who depart with our thanks for generous past support (see https://safc.blog/2016/01/the-salut-sunderland-3m-hits-competition-nearly-there/).

And before that we asked you to let us know what we are doing well, what we could do better and what we shouldn’t be doing at all at Salut! Sunderland. To mark last week’s milestone – the three millionth hit since the site was launched eight years ago – we persuaded another supplier, Classic Football Shirts, to come up with a prize for the best response.

We have a winner to announce. And without trace of a fix, the same reader has won both prizes.

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One of our own. How good was Jordan Pickford at Arsenal?

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Goalkeeping is trade that packs the odd surprise.

When Arsenal beat us 3-1 in the Premier League on December 5, the man of the match was not Ozil or any of Wenger’s other stars but Petr Cech, testament to the importance of his saves in stopping Sunderland gaining a point from the game.

And despite conceding three goals in the FA Cup tie on Saturday, our own Jordan Pickford was the best player on the pitch, ahead of the excellent Hector Bellerin and, though he played only from the 67th minute, the game-changing Aaron Ramsey.

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SA’s essay: Flattering to deceive? Deceiving to flatter?

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Jake's take on Big Sam
Jake’s take on Big Sam

John McCormick writes:

Here’s the final part of this evening’s trilogy. It’s the highly personal letter written by our manager and sent by courier to M Salut (and maybe one or two others). We only put it on this page because we know Ellis Short make our site his first stop after the Tram Car in Southwick on the way home.

What does our manager have to say this time? Is he telling the truth, as he sees it, or is he  emphasizing some players in order to move them or motivate them? Is he more informative than Hutch’s one-word verdicts? You’ll have to make your own mind up. Here’s what he said:

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Sixer’s Cup-tie Sevens: Arsenal 3, Sunderland 1, as we expected

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Jake: catch Sixer's instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season
Jake: catch Sixer’s instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season

John McCormick writes: no-one expected much from this game after Sam played it down,  which was just as well, I suppose. I did think we were going to score a second but then  I realized it was Danny Graham against Petr Cech. 

Pete Sixsmith appears to think similarly; here is his instant seven-word verdict, straight after the final whistle. 

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Willkommen bet Jan: Sixer tells Kirchhoff he’s welcome – and needed – at SAFC

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It wasn’t signed, sealed and announced as Pete Sixsmith succumbed to the editor’s pressure and wrote his customary piece welcoming an ostensibly smart and necessary new signing. It is now (see the official announcement at safc.com)*. We don’t often get to bring in players from one of the best two or three teams in Europe so it feels quite a special moment in Sunderland history …

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This Sunderland fan and ex-player (nearly) thinks relegation might be OK

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Forget the idiotic media-fuelled and possibly media-created spat between Big Sam and some manager-come-lately on Merseyside. Either the whole thing is a nonsense or one or two men need to grow up if an honest disagreement about fitness is to be seen by either as a row. This is a piece of more significance for Sunderland supporters. David Preece, Sunderland-born, a SAFC fan and on our books until he embarked on a career elsewhere, can write as well as keep goal (he’s currently player/goalkeeping coach at Lincoln City but see that wonderful bit of action in the clip).

His well-argued article for the Sunderland Echo can be seen in full at this link. We reproduce extracts with the Echo’s kind consent …


And this is the posting that took Salut! Sunderland past the milestone of 3 million hits …

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The Salut! Sunderland 3m hits competition. Nearly there

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Help Salut! Sunderland: visit this site and, if you like what you see, buy
Help Salut! Sunderland by visiting the Classic Football Shirts at http://bit.ly/1ZNPCJA

As one door closes, another opens. Personalised Football Gifts, the Weardale-based supplier of fine mugs to winners of our regular Guess the Score competition, has decided the time has come to end the arrangement. Quite simply, not enough readers followed links to their site so it is hardly a decision we can quarrel with. A winner of this week’s Arsenal v SAFC competition will still receive a mug. As a mark of appreciation of their sponsorship over the past couple of years, we have offered to keep the company’s ad on the site until the end of the season. Thanks to Ian, Hazel, Helen and, until his departure from the company, Alan, for all their support … and now let’s move on with Classic Football Shirts

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