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Leicester 1 Sunderland 2: (1) the jigsaw pieces connecting

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The season gets ever closer, so the warm-up games begin to matter, whatever managers tell you about them being all about fitness, not results. So far? Narrow wins, mostly, against modest teams and a defeat to classier opponents (Benfica). Today, we were back to the narrow wins and, for the first of two likely reports, Rob Hutchison offers this thorough assessment …


If any Leicester fan wishes to offer a report, contact Colin Randall at the e-mail address to your left and up a bit …

Just back from Leicester; a few thoughts while they are still freshish.

We appeared to start with near to our strongest team with Campbell alongside Bent, and midfield of Ahmed al Muhammadi, Henderson, Catts, and Steed, with Bramble and Turner centre backs and Ferdinand and Richardson full backs. Brucey looks to fancy this line-up although imminent arrivals hopefully of Mensah and Welbeck may change things. (Mignolet was between the sticks).

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Eric Roy on passion and frustration in Sunderland

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Salut! Sunderland chats to Eric Roy, a man whose time at the Stadium of Light was, sadly, short but who is remembered with great fondness by many supporters …


See also: why Salut! Sunderland is supporting Nice

There are players who go for season after season for most their careers, giving their all for Sunderland. There are players whose magical – or maybe just full-blooded – performances, as goalstoppers, goalmakers or goalscorers, leave indelible memories.

And there are those recognised by discerning fans as oozing class but who, for any reason from persistent injury to managerial misjudgement, play so rarely that they must have something special to remain in people’s minds almost 10 years after moving on with only 27 games and a solitary goal to show for a season-and-a-half at the club.

Step forward Eric Roy, a midfielder possessing the sort of gifts only a fairly blinkered management team could fail to appreciate. The same Eric Roy who, in the post only a few days ago but nine or 10 years since he last kicked a ball for SAFC, received a request out of the blue from a Sunderland fan asking for his autograph.

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Luke’s world: banish Benfica blues – see our fantasy England team

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luke


AND come back later today for our Eric Roy interview

Here would be as good a place as any for people to post their thoughts on Benfica 2 Sunderland 0. The official club site’s stuttering text coverage had us playing some good stuff at times, though we were often second best. Consolation for two Sunderland players (one of whom played last night): they’re both in the make-believe England team Luke Harvey selects in case Capello banned his entire World Cup squad from the next game, as Laurent Blanc has done in France …

When Laurent Blanc announced that the 23 French players who travelled to South Africa would be banned for the next match, the English media made sure we knew just who the new manager could call upon to face Norway.

Real Madrid players Lassana Diarra and Karim Benzema, alongside Arsenal’s Samir Nasri will be likely call-ups for the match, having been omitted from the World Cup squad.

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Nice tale about ‘ooh aah’ Eric Roy

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00-01 Eric Roy Match Worn Shirt
Image: Sunderland shirts


Despite the tone of recent pieces, there IS still something good to say about French football. Needless to say, there’s a strong Sunderland connection here …

Salut! Sunderland has hit upon an obvious choice of team to support in the French top-flight Ligue 1 that kicks off a week on Saturday. It did no harm to Paraguay in the World Cup, backed by this site in honour of their Sunderland players (Paulo da Sila and Cristian Riveros) and red and white stripes. And now we hope our cheerful allegiance to the Olympique Gymnaste club de Nice will bring even more sunshine to the Mediterranean coast than it already enjoys.

Think back to a cold Saturday afternoon in Sunderland. Dec 4 1999. Not a bit like the Cote d’Azur.

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Luke’s world: are the French just firing Blancs?

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Luke Harvey believes the one-match ban on French players for their playground tantrum in South Africa is both ineffectual and, by punishing the (possibly) innocent, unfair. The truth remains confused: the French sports minister spoke of the bullies and the meek but players who have spoken publicly insist everyone was up for the strike with no good guy/bad guy split. Picking his way through a murky story, Luke finds it in his heart to wish Laurent Blanc well …

Laurent Blanc’s first move as manager of the French national team was a serious statement of intent. The entire 23-man squad who represented the country so poorly in South Africa would be dropped for the next match. That’s every single player, even the ones who didn’t get a chance to set foot on the pitch during the disastrous campaign …

Now it could be said that everyone was as bad as each other, that no one disembarked the coach to train on that dark day in French football history. Yet the claim could also be made that a player such as Mathieu Valbuena, young and barely capped, is highly unlikely to go against the status quo as Messrs Evra, Ribery, Henry and Cisse sat with sullen faces and folded arms in their childish protest at Nicolas Anelka’s dismissal from the national squad.

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Soapbox: the Algarve or East Neuk

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Some took the low road, others took high road. While sunseeking Sunderland fans opted for the Algarve, Pete Sixsmith headed north, experienced the heady delights of the Forth rail bridge – and saw Cowdenbeath put a stop to any notion of dancing on the streets of the suburb of Kirkcaldy that is indeed called Raith …


Couldn’t get to Albufeira, partly because I was still at work, partly because the proprietor wasn’t prepared to finance it, which is a shame. Having said that, the Amazon voucher, which is Salut! Sunderland currency, has been frittered away on Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy among others and very good too (it didn’t quite stretch to the £6.20 double edition of fROOTS magazine, but Pete realises you can’t have everything – ed).

So, instead of watching Frazier Campbell’s one man demolition job on the Tigers, I was sat with 1500 other hardy souls at Starks Park, Kirkcaldy, watching Raith Rovers’ cup tie- “diddy, diddy” (as John Penman calls them) – against their local rivals Cowdenbeath.

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Can Laurent Blanc clean up French football?

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france

French football is in an appalling state. It was bad enough, following the Thierry Henry handball, even before the team reached South Africa. Once they got there, the rot really set in, from the awful performances to Anelka’s foul-mouthed rant, from the players’ revolt to the manager Raymond Domenech’s disgraceful refusal to shake the hand of his South African counterpart. But wIll the sidelining of Domenech and a single match ban on the striking players make everything all right? …

Even I am beginning to tire of hearing about the rotten state of French football. But comments posted here recently prompt me to reflect on the latest developments.

The millionaires’ mutiny in South Africa was a shameful but logical extension of the self-centred, scowling arrogance of the modern game.

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Sunderland 4 Hull City 2: Campbell souped up

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The first time I looked, Sunderland were winning 4-1 against Hull City in Portugal and Campbell, Fraizer not Sol, had scored all four of our goals in the first 34 minutes. The next time I looked it was 4-2 and not far from the final whistle. And my third glance showed that to be the final score.

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A challenge to the boo boys who sully SAFC’s name

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albufeiraImage; Bill Lapp

So the season’s a third over, we’ve struggled at home and failed to win away. Steve Bruce’s new signings have proved deeply disappointing and the quality of play is generally abysmal.

Then, you might argue, would be the time for the boo boys to vent their anger at the manager and his team. If they thought it would do the least bit of good.

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Titus Bramble: canny signing, or a mark of lowered ambition?

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No one likes to be honoured by a clip like this. A year from now, we all hope to be looking back on the season’s glories from Titus Bramble, if join us he does, and not a new bunch of calamities. Scroll down for a much-respected Wigan fan’s warm commendation. And Titus: the clip is meant in fun …

What we wanted was John Mensah back. What it looks as if we are going to get is Titus Bramble, for a reported £750,000-£1m from Wigan (have we simply given up on Mensah? Tragic if so).

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