As Sunderland rceord a first pre-season win, 1-0 at Grimsby, we also say farewell – or another one since he’s long gone any way, if previously on loan – to Wahbi Khazri.
Colin Randall
Sixer’s Hartlepool Soapbox: bravo Benji, bravo (later) France, bad show Byrne’s boys
Not so cool at the Pool, said Peter Sixsmith. Benji Kimpioka was cool, as were others of the young players at Jack Ross’s disposal. Catts and Honeyman, despite Ross saying the right things about how they were working for him, were distinctly uncool. What we all think of their agent, the club’s former CEO Margaret Byrne, may be best left unsaid. Sixer’s report – he chose the Victoria Ground over pub or armchair view of England losing decisively to Belgium – fills in the gaps while Monsieur Salut happily fetes France’s World Cup success, broadly deserved …
Sixer’s Sevens: Kimpioka spares the blushes to maintain a superb pre-season (for him)
The 2018-19 edition of Sixer’s Sevens, in which Pete Sixsmith or a super-sub sums up each Sunderland game in seven words, gets properly under way today. Yes, he had a first pre-season friendly the other night, when Darlington beat us 1-0. But Pete may have been keeping one eye on news from St Petersburg, when France were beating Belgium by the same score, and offered only a Sixer’s Four – ‘a rather embarrassing defeat’ – so we made do with his Soapbox match report next day.
The game at the Victoria Ground was heading the same way until, with almost the last kick of the match, when our young Swedish prospect Benjamin Mbunga Kimpioka equalised. He’s having a great pre-season, with two hat-tricks for the Under 23s already. Their opener? ‘One down to sloppy defending,’ wrote Pete,’there’s a change then’.
So here we go with Pete’s first (written seconds before our goal) plus – for those not of a nervous disposition – a reminder of how Sixer and others captured each game last season. The squeamish should stop at the final game (when we improbably beat the champions, Wolves, 3-0) …
How our Coventry friends hijacked Salut! Sunderland’s League One promotion poll
No sour grapes. We – or those of us with too much time on our hands – might well have done the same to them.
Anyone looking in recent days at John McCormick’s detailed and scrupulously fair articles, accompanied by a poll inviting readers’ views on who will win promotion next season, will have seen how well Coventry City suddenly seemed be doing.
Bravo England and Sunderland’s Jordans. And now, Allez les Bleus
Monsieur Salut writes: so sad. England should have been two or three up at half time but lost their way after the interval. Only the sort of toerags who jump on ambulances would deny that Croatia grew stronger and stronger in the second half while England wilted.
For Sunday’s final, Monsieur Salut’s personal disappointment – having warmed to this England manager and side more than any since 1966 – is lessened only to the extent that he can shout for Mme Salut’s Bleus.
I’ve been impressed by France, and especially by how well the racially mixed team has gelled. Look at the players belting out the words of La Marsellaise – the rotten far right in France has lost a spurious reason for doubting their allegiance. Here is a piece, for anyone interested, that I wrote for The National (UAE). The editor is happy for me to reproduce my work here ….
Burton, Scunthorpe or Peterborough – who’ll join Sunderland, Barnsley, Charlton and Portsmouth?
UPDATE: we saw the poll had grown, improbably, to 11,000+ votes with Coventry way out in front on 26 per cent. Couldn’t blame Jimmy Hill this time but something was clearly up. For the culprits, go to the Coventry site Sky Blues Talk … but don’t get too cross as our lot would gladly have done the same to them. The poll, unsurprisingly, is suspended …
After Colin reposted our “who’s going up?” poll (on the left, below) in one of the Question and Answer sessions with our owners there was brief flurry of voting, as you might have expected given the number of visitors we had. And then things slowed down until, by the weekend, things were at a trickle, although votes were and are still coming in. Again, this was to be expected as the eyes of the football world were on Russia, where eight or nine ex-Sunderland players were taking part in the World’s most prestigious competition outside the Third Division. We now have over 800 votes cast, which is enough to be going on with, although Colin in his gut feeling poll, had almost as many when only one vote was allowed per person.
Sixer makes a good weekend better, calling Harry Maguire today’s Charlie Hurley
Jack Rodwell has gone, that’s a fact, and rumours abound that Whabi Khazri’s on his way out, with a decent wedge coming through the revolving door in return. Over in Russia our local boys continue to do good, drawing praise from Alan Shearer and earning the club that taught them everything at least a few more thousands, money which presumably won’t be squandered on absent players. The SOL is getting new seats and the weather remains brilliant.
So how could the weekend improve?
With a post from Pete Sixsmith, that’s how:
London Football Exchange releases sports cryptocurrency. Could it help Sunderland?
The ways things have been, especially under Ellis Short and even now as new owners try to bury the legacy …
New club sponsor. And he’s a supporter
Tom Sloanes, commercial director, BETDAQ [left] and Tony Davison, managing director, Sunderland AFC
Salut! Sunderland has had, broadly, amicable relations with Sunderland AFC. It could have been better, it could have been worse.
Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven give the impression of wanting such relations to grow stronger, not weaker. That goes for the mainstream media as well as for the fan sites, big and small.
We are unlikely to see a repeat of the insane Ellis Short line that the media is to blame for misrepresenting him and his actions and/or intentions when the same man admitted he never spoke to the media.
Sixer Says: torn between two loves as Sunderland Under 23s visit Shildon
Monsieur Salut says: Shildon is where Pete Sixsmith and I grew up after unpromising starts to life (me in Hove, …