Colin Randall

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

McGeady: Aiden and abetting a new Sunderland promotion push

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McGeady: our best signing so far. Photo courtesy of safc.com

Monsieur Salut writes: we all love a marquee signing, the arrival at the Stadium of Light of Light of a game-changing player. I have no problem with bivouac signings, as our three new acquisitions so far, all frees, might be termed. As long as Jack Ross and his scouts have done their homework correctly, they may turn out to be important components of Sunderland’s forthcoming second go at getting out of League One. But the contract extension for Aiden McGeady is in a different league …

Aiden McGeady, indisputably one of League One’s classiest players last season, is staying at Sunderland.

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Sunderland, Bolton and Bury. Our League One financial ramble has to end somewhere.

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I didn’t know when I’d get back to this series but it seems appropriate to visit these three now, though matters aren’t completely resolved. In two of the three clubs I’m not sure when they will be, and it’s possible we’ll get to the start of the season first.

And that introduces a small problem. The origins of the series arose from my curiosity about the finances and solvency of League One clubs in the context of their having the resources and ability to mount a promotion challenge. I never intended to be digging through files in the Companies House website and thought two posts would enable me to cover 20 clubs, with a third to deal with the three where administration was possible plus Sunderland, who were facing a takeover.

It didn’t work out like that. The start went pretty much as planned but my second dip into the League revealed a level of complexity that resulted in fewer clubs being covered in slightly more depth over two posts.

And then, when I got to Blackpool, Bolton and Bury, not to mention Sunderland, not everything was in order and I did have to dig deeper than I really wanted.  I managed to cover Blackpool and got up to speed with Bolton but in Bury’s case I could still be digging. However, everything has to finish somewhere, so here’s the last post in the series:

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ALS, Charlie Methven and ‘a small cabal of so-called supporters’

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Drumming up support

Close season means silliness, says Monsieur Salut. Our club is ‘linked’ with players no one at SAFC has actually ever wanted. We pursue targets none of the speculation even mentioned. Fans whinge that June passes without marquee signings. They whinge again when the first acquisitions are frees. But at least none of us would be stupid and petty enough to complain when Alex Morgan uses a tea cup gesture to celebrate the USA beating England in Lyon. Would we?

Meanwhile, in disjointed (but reasonably explained) fashion, A Love Supreme has been interviewing Charlie Methven in his English country garden …

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Portsmouth then Sunderland, Ipswich, Rotherham, Peterborough and Coventry top our poll. But where are Lincoln?

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On Friday we had over 3,000 visitors, followed by a quiet weekend. Not everyone took part in our top six poll  but over 1200 votes (not voters) have now been cast. That’s not bad, I suppose, for a League One fans’ site but I am expecting a few more will chip in before the season kicks off.

Early results suggest the headline I used then – for which I visited a couple of betting sites to find the promotion favourites – was on the right lines. Of the six clubs I named five are in the top spots. Lincoln (currently lingering in 8th place) are the exception with Sunderland, unsurprisingly, replacing them. There’s a gap – slight but quite evident – between the top three and the next three,  after which numbers drop off, so Lincoln and Doncaster, who made last season’s playoffs and now lie seventh, have quite a bit of ground to make up.

All of the clubs in the League received votes, which I’m taking to signify that we  managed a wide reach. It will be interesting to see if enough fans of so-called smaller clubs, which are predominantly towards the bottom of the poll, visit in large enough numbers to move their favourites upwards. Crowdwise, numbers are against them but we have only small numbers voting so you never know.

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Tour de France: and the real star of the show is … France

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Monsieur Salut writes: it’s early July so that means, after an exhilarating Women’s World Cup (can we please sign Rose Lavelle and Janine Beckie?), it’s Wimbledon and the Tour de France.

A while back, we had a series about ‘another team I like’ which evolved into ‘my other sporting passion’. Before petering out, it produced one or two decent entries (and some some intriguing promises of entries, not in the end fulfilled).

Watching French TV as the peloton was winding its way through the lush Marne countryside reminded me of Pete Sixsmith‘s splendid piece about why he loved this competition. Martin Emmerson, when not commentating for BBC Newcastle on Durham County Cricket Club, is another fan. Here, from 2010, is how Sixer saw it then …

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Ipswich or Portsmouth? Rotherham or Peterborough? How about Lincoln or Coventry? It’s your choice

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Last season our punters got it more or less right and correctly predicted most of the top six. Luton were missed but that was mainly down to the Coventry Ninjas, whose hijack of last year’s poll pushed them (Luton) out of the top places.

Maybe the ninjas or another club’s fans will do the same again this season. As far as I’m aware the polldaddy vulnerability that allowed multiple voting still exists and all I can do is disable the ability of readers to see the results in real time. That might change how the poll coding works (it’s built-in and can’t be changed) but it takes something away. A pity, but there we go.

I’ve got a lot on for the next few weeks so I won’t be conjuring up a novel method of tracking and displaying our chosen clubs’ progress or the lack of it. All I’ll be doing is monitoring the accretion of points for now, though I might come up with something different later in the season.

As always, your comments are welcome. We hold posts for moderation but they do go up eventually, subject to meeting commonsense rules of decency, manners, libel etc.

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Salut! Sunderland welcomes Lee Burge, competition for Jon McLaughlin

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Conor McLaughlin, courtesy of safc.com


Fans, understandably, look at new signings and, if a player is coming on a free transfer, feel underwhelmed and wonder whether progress is actually being made.

Long experience has taught Monsieur Salut to avoid rash judgements just because July starts without any major new additions. On that wretched but sometimes useful thing that is social media (beware, Trump’s there a lot), there are already early signs of concern, dismay and even panic among Sunderland supporters. Trump hasn’t yet expressed a view.

But Lee Burge, a goalkeeper newly released by Coventry City. arrives at the SoL as stand-in and competition – PLEASE, not as a replacement – for the excellent Jon Mclaughlin. He and Conor McLaughlin, a full back from Millwall, appear to be Jack Ross’s choices and for as long as we keep the faith in Ross, we must trust his judgement.

And come what may, Burge and McLaughlin – their photos appear by courtesy of safc.com –
deserve and get the traditional Salut! Sunderland welcome.

Lee Burge, courtesy of safc.com

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Lee Cattermole out, another McLaughlin in as Sunderland preparations move up a gear

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Catts: from reckless and hotheaded to steady and sensible

A commonsense end to a long-serving player’s Sunderland career or a shock announcement few saw coming: two ways of seeing today’s news that Lee Cattermole has left with immediate effect.

Cattermole’s departure makes sense because a League One club really should not be paying an injury-prone midfielder a reported £40,000 a week. In any case, financial fair play rules oblige SAFC to cut their wage bill.

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Just Blackpool and Bolton, the financial ramble continues without Bury or Sunderland.

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I expected to be finishing this series with a single post. It’s just not possible. While things have moved ahead with Blackpool, they seems to have stalled at Bolton and Sunderland still have to get out of the starting blocks. And as for Bury, their can has been kicked far down the road in the hope of allowing a solution that it reached the start of next season. Unfortunately, that only seems to have allowed more problems to build up, or at least existing ones to grow.
And with that the word length just kept getting bigger and bigger and the page length longer and longer. So once more I’ve decided to split the page and give you a where we’re at with Bolton and Blackpool and leave Bury and Sunderland to another day.

As ever supporters of both Blackpool and Bolton are welcome to chip in with their corrections, additions, thoughts, observations, even hopes, subject to the rules of decency, libel and so on. You maybe held for moderation but any posts meeting our standards do go up eventually.

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