Arsenal Guess the Score: double prize for winning entry predicting SAFC victory

Monsieur Salut briefly forgets how poor he feels just now and digs ever deeper in a desperate attempt to inspire a Sunderland win …

What could possibly be better than winning a prize mug from Salut! Sunderland? Right first time: two prize mugs. And what could possibly be a safer bet than to offer any prize at all that depends on a Sunderland win? Answers on a postcard to Mr D Moyes c/o the Stadium of Light, Millennium Way, Sunderland, SR5 1SU.

Most of our loyal army of optimists went for a Sunderland win at Southampton. No one correctly predicted a 1-0 defeat.

That means the mug (I have actually paid for the thing) is still up for grabs. The first to post the scoreline before kickoff will win it, with an Arsenal design if the winner is a Gooner. In either case, I can get it sent only to a UK address.

But if you correctly predict a Sunderland victory, I will double the prize (and just make Sixer wait a bit longer for the money I owe him) and make it two. Arsenal fans are probably too well-heeled to need such handouts, but qualify for the double prize, too, on the same terms.

What does Monsieur Salut think? Well one way or the other, I have seen nearly every game so far but this will be my first stadium visit since returning from France. I’ll be at Bournemouth, too, and if I am really honest, I do not expect to see us pick up a single point from either.

But I naturally want to be proved wrong. If relegation looks more and more likely, it is not a done deal and won’t be for some time. Points, however unexpected, would lift morale enormously and also give us hope.

At the very least, we need to start looking as respectable as is possible at or near the bottom of the table and that means we must stop thinking of beating Derby’s lowest point record of 11 as some sort of target for the season.

So Ha’way the Lads. As a Southampton blogger, Chris Rann put it at Twitter: “… fantastic support. They deserve better than they are getting at the moment.” Time for that support to be rewarded.

PS We were let down for the Arsenal ‘Who are You?’ – the blogger who promised to do the honours then promptly forgot all about it and ran out of time – and feared the worst. But Tony Merakli, editor of the Gunnersphere stepped in at the last minute and his interview will appear later today.