Jake: ‘Click the image to reach Salut! Sunderland’s home page’
The most important point to be made about tomorrow night’s game at the Spotland Stadium is that we must aim to remain unbeaten.
But a draw would be a disappointment. Sunderland really need to maintain the momentum, indeed the winning feeling, after a comfortable league cup visit to Accrington Stanley and a gritty home victory over much-fancied League One promotion rivals.
The spirit that helped secure the three points against Pompey, plus the quality that Jack Ross has in his squad, should in theory be enough to bring us a first away win in the game at Rochdale, against whom we achieved a league double last season.
Jake: ‘a home win on the board so let’s start doing it away, too’
Ahead of another important test for Jack Ross’s new-look squad, Salut! Sunderland poses a few questions to Rochdale fans in our own new-look Who are You? format.
We no longer launch searching parties for suitable candidates for each Sunderland game but are this season throwing open the exercise to all opposing supporters who stray on to our pages.
John McCormick writes: Let’s not quibble. We were not good. However, we had enough character to come back from a poor goal against a team that will feature at the end of the season and that must bode well, for morale as much as for League position. Such wins are not to be sniffed at and I’m sure the crowd will have gone home happy.
We’ll find out tomorrow whether that can be said of our men at the match, when we get a full report. At the moment I don’t know if Malcolm or Pete will supply it. I do know Pete’s immediate post-game feelings, courtesy of a seven word text that winged its way south as the final whistle blew:
NB: the official web address of Salut! Sunderland is now https://safc.blog for those who like to bookmark the site. Using https instead of http should eliminate the annoying ‘site not secure’ warnings and, worse, re-direction to a dodgy Turkish site …
Our usual pre-match buildup has been disrupted by a technical issue, now resolved. This was how we invited Pompey fans to take part in our lazy new version of the traditional Who are You? series. Apologies to readers who found a way here despite our problems and have already seen what follows …
Playing the same team five times in one season, in the case of away trips as far away as is possible without falling into the sea, should be like one of those long trials after which 12 good men (and/or women) and true are excused further jury duties for life.
But no, Sunderland must face Portsmouth at least twice season, starting with Saturday’s early kickoff and not in the league we both fancied ourselves playing.
Salut! Sunderland has run a Who are You? series for most of its 12 years of existence. It has yielded superb interviews with followers of opposing clubs, whether celebrities, churchmen, writers, politicians. broadcasters, former players and managers or “ordinary” fans.
But setting up interviews is hard graft and this season, we are posting a shorter list of questions here and inviting supporters to answer as many of them as they wish.
If the quality of the answers we received for the Ipswich Town game is maintained, we will keep the annual Haway (Highly Articulate Who are You?) awards going. If the response is more like readers saw for the Oxford and Accrington games, our kind prize sponsors will not be troubled next May.
A technical fault means our headlines are not currently being picked up by NewsNow. This will seriously affect readership levels and it will be a struggle to attract Pompey fans to answer the questions below. So the Who are You? exercise is combined with Guess the Score – just for fun because the fault is proving very expensive to fix.
Playing the same team five times in one season, in the case of away trips as far away as is possible without falling into the sea, should be like one of those long trials after which 12 good men (and/or women) and true are excused further jury duties for life.
But no, Sunderland must face Portsmouth at least twice season, starting with Saturday’s early kickoff and not in the league we both fancied ourselves playing.
This posting is aimed in particular at Pompey supporters. Salut! Sunderland has run a Who are You? series for most of its 12 years of existence. It has yielded superb interviews with followers of opposing clubs, whether celebrities, churchmen, writers, politicians. broadcasters, former players and managers or “ordinary” fans.
But setting up interviews is hard graft and this season, we are posting a shorter list of questions here and inviting supporters to answer as many of them as they wish.
If the quality of the answers we received for the Ipswich Town game is maintained, we will keep the annual Haway (Highly Articulate Who are You?) awards going. If the response is more like readers saw for the Oxford and Accrington games, our kind prize sponsors will not be troubled next May.
And while you are here, Guess the Score. Just for fun.
Jake: ‘Sixer (or his sub) does it in seven words, no more, no less – unless he miscounts’
Malcolm Dawson writes….circumstances meant I couldn’t get to Accrington this evening, which is a shame because despite the rain and the abandoned game on my last visit, this together with Rochdale, is one of the venues I was really looking forward to revisiting this year. And presumably the Stanley Chairman is still miffed with Stewart Donald as I couldn’t even pay to watch a live stream via safsee. So it was Barnes and Benno for me, accompanied by the Lancashire burr of a couple of ladies sitting immediately in front of the commentary position.
Benno was certainly feeling more upbeat at halftime than he has been recently, and so was Pete Sixsmith, whose half time 7 read “comfortable first half with an improved performance.” Only one goal to show at the break, but at least it was in our favour this time.
One goal of course, is often never enough and as Pete’s second text said “one all after stupid penalty given away” brought a much more familiar scoreline. Aiden McGeady however obviously hadn’t read the script and put us back in front to no surprise for one of the two ladies who confessed to the listening audience “that’s why I said ‘s***’ when he came on” while Pete’s update read “wonderful goal by McGeady“. With time running out and me wondering if we might have to endure a penalty shoot out, Charlie Wyke stuck in a third and that was that.
Pete will be dusting down his soapbox and filing his match report tomorrow but for now make do with his full time summary in just seven words.
Jake: ‘Pkmoey’s the bigger game, but a win here would be nice’
The invitation to supporters of our Carabao Cup opponents, Accrington Stanley, to answer a few questions from Salut! Sunderland has received more or less the response we might have expected.
Not one of the hardy souls who follow “the club that wouldn’t die” has taken us up on the offer.
The questions are repeated below in case there is more enthusiasm with the game being that much closer. There isn’t much to update; Stanley’s first home game of the season was suspended because of the continuing crisis at the intended opponents, Bury, so they remain pointless.
Another invitation – to supporters of Sunderland and Ipswich to predict the outcome of Saturday’s game at Portman Road fared better.
The absence of a prize did not deter readers and the posting attracted a healthy 18 responses, though not all were entries. David Miller correctly forecast 1-1 and is probably cursing Salut! Sunderland for making it a prizeless edition.
Let’s have another go, once again for fun. Do we care too much about a league cup game? Well, clearly not as much we care about Saturday’s tough league match at home to Portsmouth, who beat us twice last season as we played each other five times (including the Checkatrade final and the play-off semis). But for those of us who want Sunderland to win every game, a strong and successful performance at the tiny Wham stadium would be welcome – and do no harm to confidence after our less than resounding start to the season.
Jake: ‘the League Cup – an opportunity or a nuisance?’
Salut! Sunderland maintains its idle hands new approach to the traditional Who are You? exercise ahead of Tuesday night’s visit to Accrington Stanley in the Carabao Cup (League Cup still sounds better).
Accordingly, rather than go out a search for a winning interviewee, a task that proved desperately hard last season, a shortened version of the questions we have previously asked appears below and we invite Stanley fans to respond to any or all of them in the Comments below.
This method worked excellently for yesterday’s league game at Ipswich, as acknowledged by our deputy editor Malcolm Dawson, but less well for the opener against Oxford United. Stanley’s small fan base makes a bumper response to this post unlikely but we’d love to be proved wrong. It’s your chance to have your say about your club; it means as much to you as ours does to us …
Jake: ‘the mean sod has withdrawn the prize for this week’
Football fans are not known especially for their powers of measured reflection, that ability to take a realistic view rather than jump in at the first opportunity with both feet raised. Or so says Monsieur Salut.
Accordingly, the Ross Out chorus has begun. We’ve played all of one game. There are 45 to go in the league alone. We played badly by all accounts and questions have been raised about the team selection. All the same, as I said at Twitter while acknowledging that disdain for the manager is not purely a kneejerk reaction to the opening-day failure to beat modest opposition, calling for his head now is the sort of thing that takes us into laughing stock territory.
A couple of responses from Oxford fans ahead of Sunderland’s opening game hardly counts as a storming start to the labour-saving device of inviting opposing fans to send their thoughts on forthcoming matches between our clubs.
But let’s persevere, says Monsieur Salut. We’ve had good Ipswich Town Q+A interviews in the past and must hope a few Tractor Boys (or girls) feel inclined to answer one or more, or indeed all, of the questions below.
If this lazy version of our superb Who are You? series works, there’ll be the usual prizes at the end of the season for the best interviews. We’ll see …
