How typical that after a brighter spell in the second half, a sloppily conceded late free kick – and booking – by Paulo Da Silva should lead to an Albion goal, Odemwing making up for an dreadful first half miss.
And how typical that unlike when we go one up – nervously hanging on to the lead – Albion simply pressed on in hopes of a second.
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WBA 1 SAFC0: bad to worse
Update: lost 1-0. How typical that after a brighter spell in the second half, a sloppily conceded free kick – and booking – by Da Silva should lead to an Albion goal, Odemwing making up for his dreadful first half miss. All to do now …
Steve Bruce was probably reasonably happy to go in at half time with the game all square. That is about all he can have been pleased with.
Sunderland’s failure to demonstrate greater class, sharpness and punch, when faced with a newly promoted side widely expected to struggle all season, has been alarming.
Apologies if you tried to visit the site earlier only to hit a brick wall formed by all the Sunderland fans who, we are told, are the fattest in the Premier. All beyond our control, I’m afraid. Still, Pete Sixsmith is always worth waiting for (though things are still in a state of chaos behind the scenes at Salut! Sunderland towers so this is a bit of an emergency posting)
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One week in, is it just me, or is the nation distinctly underwhelmed by the first week of the new Premier League season? Our game was hardly one to set the pulses racing with excitement – phrases like “positives outweigh negatives” suggest that there are sufficient of the latter to cause problems.
Then, look at the crowds. Ours was a poor 38,000, only marginally better than the crowd we had five years ago for the game with Charlton when we had a strike force of Jonathan Stead and Andy Gray, Steven Caldwell and Gary Breen in defence and Calamity Kelvin in goal and ended up accumulating 15 points.
Requests from Salut! Sunderland to a couple of Baggie fansites met with a stony silence – shame on you lads! – but one high profile WBA supporter’s response has been good as gold. In the first part – click here – of the BBC tennis commentator David Law‘s* fascinating story of his support for Sunderland’s next opponents, we heard of his success in converting John McEnroe and Goran Ivanisevic to the Albion cause. Now David moves on to Midlands rivalries and West Brom greats …
Salut! Sunderland: how much do you personally enter into or identify with Baggie/Villa or Baggie/Wolves rivalry?
The Villa rivalry was always the big one for me growing up, but then they became too good for us it seemed a bit futile to hate them, which is when Wolves became the big rivalry. Obviously I want us to stuff them every time we play them (and I’d love to finally beat Villa again for the first time in a quarter of a century), but when they are not playing against us I will be supporting Wolves, Blues and Villa because I’m from the area. I’ve lived overseas a lot and I hate it when people assume I’m from London just because I’m British. I’m from the Midlands, and proud of it.
Apologies instantly to Tony who, commenting on the last piece, thought one bite at la cerise of French football was already more than enough.
Jeremy Robson , who clearly puts my stance on Evra, Anelka et al on a par with the way his ancestors regarded wicked coalowners, simply wouldn’t shut up. His thoughts are now published uninterrupted after an earlier technical glitch …
It was interesting to see the quotations from the “punished” French players referring to “being on strike” rather than “being banned”.
One thing is for certain, and that it that you can no longer kill someone who is already dead, any more than you can effectively blacklist players who have already withdrawn their labour.
Brought forward by popular demand: this week’s Who Are You? … or maybe just brought forward by the unpopularity of my obsession with French football.
So: Sunderland travel to the Hawthorns on Saturday in the hope that John McEnroe will be left as fuming by the result as we trust he was by West Brom’s 6-0 thrashing at Chelsea. Salut! Sunderland is delighted to welcome David Law*, the BBC tennis commentator and confirmed Baggie who explains how he made Albion fans of McEnroe and, especially, Goran Ivanisevic …
Salut! Sunderland readers produced a healthy response to my account of the French Football Federation’s individual punishments for four of the five players called before a disciplinary commission.
One, presumably Irish reader still hadn’t forgotten the Hand of Henry; someone else considered it a mark of arrogance to have a point of view at all. And two Sunderland fans in Canada – both regular contributors to these pages – described events in terms suggesting a struggle between downtrodden labour and ruthless capitalism.
An 18-game international ban for Anelka, a five-match exclusion for Evra and taps on the wrist for Ribery and Toulalan. Have we heard the last of this French farce? Probably not; they can appeal …
Fair play to Patrice Evra, Jérémy Toulalan and Eric Abidal. Of the infamous five French World Cup rebels summoned to a disciplinary hearing in Paris today, they did at least deem the occasion worthy of their presence.
Transfer speculation is generally a pain. Agents, players and management spread or plant the most ridiculous tosh, because they have an agenda to serve. And some lazy journalists, I am sure, lap it up and also willingly come up with their own names and scenarios, based on pure invention or the flimsiest of information, to throw into the ring.
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