Colin Randall

Salut! Sunderland was edited by Colin Randall up until December 2019 - read more

The SAFC Burnley Who are You?: ‘I’d take FA Cup and relegation’

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‘Andy: ‘hoping for more of the same’

When Andy Robinson*‘s ‘Who are You?’ interview was published before Sunderland played Andy’s club Burnley, we agreed he would also do the honours for the FA Cup game a week later. That game is almost upon us and Andy’s comments on the FA Cup, and what it means to him, will endear him to many readers just as did last week’s interview. As for the game at Turf Moor, Saturday, safe to say Andy enjoyed it more than us. He starts with his reflections on Burnley 4-1 SAFC – leading to his thoughts on this weekend’s match …

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Calling Defoe, West Ham, SAFC: (1) stay, (2) dream on, 3) keep

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Sunderland have rejected a £6m bid from West Ham for striker Jermain Defoe, Sky sources understand

Salut! Sunderland pays relatively little heed to rubbishy transfer window speculation.

In the past, much or maybe most turned out to be untrue, no more than the manipulations of clubs and agents or the imaginations of football journos.

But these days, clubs – some clubs, then only sometimes – are more open about their wishes and their dealings. We already know Slaven Bilic fancies bringing Jermain Defoe back to West Ham. We know Crystal Palace, absurdly located in one of the worst places to get to in London, even from London. want him, too.

These are my messages more fully:

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Sunderland vs Burnley: aiming for revenge in FA Cup Guess the Score

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Jake: ‘let’s make beating them more than a consolation prize, Lads’

Monsieur Salut introduces another prize Guess the Score ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup 3rd Round to at home to Burnley, against whom we have something to prove (though most of us might feel strongly that the point should be made, and three points taken, when the return league fixture comes round in March) …

No one won the three-for-two New Year Guess the Score, in which readers were asked to predict both the Burnley and Liverpool scorelines and – if right – win three mugs.

That is hardly surprising since only in the deepest recesses of pessimistic hearts would a Sunderland supporter (most entrants always being SAFC) would the prospect of a crushing defeat at Turf Moor seem a) a likely outcome and b) one respectable to predict.

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Sixer’s Liverpool Soapbox: surprised, nay shocked, nay absolutely gobsmacked

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Sixer, our man at the match

Malcolm Dawson writes: New Year’s Eve and the aftermath was spent down in the Midlands, with my mate the Leicester City fan who is convinced that he will be off to Cardiff to see the Foxes in the final of the Champions League, despite my reminding him that I have seen Leicester City play more often than he has over the past 30 years.

I travelled up the A1, kind of hoping that the accident which slowed my progress might delay me sufficiently to make the trip to the Stadium of Light impracticable. I had told the Liverpool fan I got talking to over breakfast at the Little Chef (excellent black pudding btw) that I was expecting a 3 or 4 nil hammering but I got through and made it to Sunderland just in time to park up and hear the team news on Radio Newcastle, before re-claiming my scarf from a certain Mr Sixsmith, who had taken it from my car after the Chelsea game, donning my thermals and making my way to my seat.

Well worth the effort and a typical experience for Sunderland fans everywhere. We can get beaten by poor sides then play well against the title challengers but, unlike when we played the Pensioners, we got a point from a decent performance. I’ll let Peter take up the story.

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The £5.53m joke: tell Crystal Palace, West Ham £40m couldn’t buy Defoe

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***         Jake: ‘Jermain, you’re a star’         ***

Like most people, I have no idea what Jermain Defoe’s contract says about his right to leave Sunderland in the event of this or that bid being made.

Like most people, I know that Slaven Bilic rates him as highly as we do and knows his movement and his goals make him an unusually gifted striker. And our old pal Big Sam would apparently love to get him down to the backwaters of south London.

And like all Sunderland supporters, I believe that if Defoe shows the slightest hint of being tempted to join either club, or anyone else, Ellis Short should throw whatever it takes – money, the freedom of Sunderland if he has the ear of someone at the council, even David Moyes’s famed £30,000 watch – to keep him.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Sunderland 2-2 Liverpool. Maybe deserved to win

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Jake: ‘bonus point! The frustrating thing is that half of that fight and effort would probably have beaten Burnley’

Monsieur Salut writes: what a transformation! Here was a performance unrecognisable from the dross seen at Turf Moor. Most of us would have taken a point before the game; against title contenders, we might easily have won had Anthony Taylor, who had curiously patchy curate’s egg of a game (ie good in parts), given us not two but three penalties, the disallowed one no less a stonewall spot kick than the two he awarded. A good game and Pete Sixsmith‘s instant seven-word verdict reveals a happier man than we heard from at Burnley …

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In case you missed the Liverpool vs Sunderland ‘Who are You?’

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Jake’s take

HAPPY NEW YEAR

It is not often that a Who are You? interview is re-posted. On this occasion, 24 hours (23 actually) ahead of our home game against Liverpool, it seems a natural thing to do. Why? Well, it’s a good interview but that alone wouldn’t be enough. Nor would the fact that not all readers will have seen it first time around.

It is simple really. The juxtaposition of fixtures over the New Year period, two in three days, led us to publish the Liverpool WAY even before the Watford match had been played (albeit by only the home side since Sunderland didn’t turn up). Even without the latest injuries (Kone and Anichebe), this seemed a tough old game, the sort you go into after a fine away win against a side much lower down the table. That went wrong, of course, so we need heroics tomorrow. Watching Watford v Spurs gave an idea of the gulf between top and lower midtable, so we must expect the worst while hoping for the best when second top meets third bottom. You can still enter Guess the Score, by the way – just forget the Burnley part! …

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Sunderland and the transfer window. Doom and gloom Observed

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Sixer at The Observer: his Burnley-SAFC match report is not for the squeamish

It hardly seems appropriate after yesterday but Salut! Sunderland wishes all readers, including those who contribute to its pages, a very happy new year …

Monsieur Salut writes: surely no football team sets out to play as woefully as ours did at Burnley yesterday. It just happens. Sadly, of course, it seems to happen to Sunderland more than to most.

Supporting Sunderland has never been easy and few of us will stop doing so because of the meek and clueless surrender at Turf Moor. But where do we go from here (yes, I realise the answer is fairly obvious, but I mean if we are to give ourselves any hope of redemption)? Peter Sixsmith, who suffered with the rest of the travelling contingent in Lancashire, was asked by The Observer to set out our transfer prospects. This was his response, naturally submitted before yesterday’s calamitous events …

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Sixer’s Burnley Soapbox: the death warrant for Sunderland’s Premier League status?

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Pete Sixsmith has endured much as a Sunderland supporter but yesterday’s ordeal was about as bad as it gets. We’re still in a better position points-wise than last year but the omens for improvement via the transfer window don’t look good, and it was transfers that made the difference last season. No-one can be in any doubt significant improvement is needed, and needed desperately; if we continue to play the way we did yesterday we can kiss goodbye to the Premiership for a long, long time, as Pete makes clear in another immaculately observed match report

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