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Not good enough for England? A Bent judgement

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dbent


Bent for England. The cry was heard again after his latest goalscoring feats. But some observers feel Fabio Capello will not be swayed by his remarkable record in a team that – at least before our mini-run – had hardly kept him supplied with a consistent stream of quality service …

The Daily Star is not a newspaper to which Salut! Sunderland turns as a matter of everyday routine.

It may be a fountain of wisdom and truth, but we prefer other sources of information. But an item about Darren Bent’s suitability – or supposed unsuitability – for a place in England’s World Cup squad leapt from the laptop page.

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Who are you? We’re Aston Villa (3), lurking in Sunderland

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villatops

Long ago – long even before this photo* was taken in 1995 – I had a colleague who suddenly ended his lifelong support for Villa. They’d given him quite enough grief, ruined far too many Saturdays. No more. He’d even stopped looking too hard for the scores, and felt tons happier. Somehow can’t see that happening to Gary
Gleeson**, the last in our procession of Villa fans. He lives minutes from the Stadium of Light and was until recently chairman of the Villa supporters’ club branch in the North East. Read on to see why we should hope he gets to Villa Park tomorrow night …


You’re having the sort of season we’d love: one final already, another maybe to come and still pressing for top four. I bet you’ll tell me you’re not satisfied!

I’m very very satisfied. It’s difficult to argue that a cup final, the possibility of another cup final and being in the mix for the 4th place Holy Grail is not a very successful season so far. If I have to make a prediction, I think we’ll lose to Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final and finish 6th in the league behind Spurs and Liverpool. The immediate aftermath to that will be a huge feeling of anti-climax amongst the majority of the Villa faithful. “Faithful” is probably a poor term though. I’ve noticed grumblings in recent weeks that intimate to me a feeling of entitlement amongst some Villa fans. I’m more pragmatic, although living 200 miles from Villa Park probably allows me to see a bit more of the “woods for the trees”.

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Iceman’s floe of information is pure football class

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readytogoCredit to the popular Sunderland fans’ site Ready To Go and one of its Pure Football forum contributors, Iceman, for providing the discussion of the day for Sunderland fans.

Iceman was present at an illuminating social evening in the Sports Bar at the Stadium of Light and duly reported, with one bite-sized chunk after the other, the warm, witty or wise words uttered by Niall Quinn, Steve Bruce and some of the players in attandance – Craig Gordon, John Mensah, Kenwyne Jones, Michael Turner, Anton Ferdinand, Darren Bent and Lorik Cana.

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Who are you? We’re Aston Villa (2) – still down on Dowd

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josh2

Between losing his wallet and agonising over university options, young Josh Henwood* had plenty of reasonable excuses for his late response to our appeal for a Villa fan to preview tomorrow’s game. But he emerged from his papal nom de guerre – he’s PopeJosh at the VillaTalk site – with interesting thoughts on Villa, SAFC, England and, oddly enough, referees …


AND WOULD BELIEVE? yet another Villa fan (this time from within Gary McAllister diving distance of the Stadium of Light) speaks to Salut! tonight …

Salut! Sunderland
Birmingham at home and Villa away in the space of a few days. Is all this rubbing shoulders with the second city good for us

I was going to say before Saturday that it wasn’t what you wanted at all! But after the results I’m scared of the prospect of playing you guys. We can’t seem to get a good win going despite good performances, and you seem to be getting points with (no offence intended) not-so-great performances. By the looks of it, this Midlands weekend might actually benefit you much more than you thought.

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Who are you? We’re Aston Villa (1) – and beware rampant Carew

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The re-arranged visit to Villa Park crept up on us a bit. A list of Aston Villa supporters’ club contacts proved suspect until, finally, we found Gordon Nicoll*, who runs the Studley and Redditch branch. Gordon worshipped Dwight Yorke, is undecided about Stewart Downing, thinks Birmingham City have been lucky and fancies Villa to end our little run and beat us for the third time this season …

Salut! Sunderland You’re having the sort of season we’d love: one final already, another maybe to come and still pressing for top four. I bet you’ll tell me you’re not satisfied!

Absolutely correct. As football supporters we never could be and us Villa supporters are seldom satisfied! If we won 8-0, we’d complain it should have been 10 and trust me I know a number like that! In fairness terrific season overall- disappointingly went out of the Europa cup at the preliminary stage but otherwise a tremendous cup season for us.

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Soapbox: Gordon sees off the Blues – now for Villa

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SAFC 3 Birmingham 1: precisely what the doctor ordered. And what a stormer of a match, rightly praised in the dodgy stream commentary and now lauded by Pete Sixsmith, who wonders if we can follow up the really hard bit – getting some points on the board – with a more relaxed, less backs-to-the-wall approach …

There’s an old adage that keepers may not win you matches, but they make sure you don’t lose ‘em. The fact that we have taken four points from the last two games is largely down to our oft maligned Scottish keeper.

Add a 20+ goals a year man in Bent and that is why we are sitting reasonably comfortably in mid table, with Stoke City and Fulham in our sights as we banish the relegation fears of January and February.

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SAFC 3 Birmingham 1: is Craig Gordon the new Monty?

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SEE ALSO: guess-who-was-our-star


In praise of a footballer who has had to triumph over doubt – and done so in style …

More years ago than Salut! Sunderland would willingly own up to to remembering, an away game took us to Huddersfield, where Sunderland won 3-0 in a game that began with a blitz on our goal.

The reason we weren’t left with an uphill struggle before scoring ourselves was simple: Jimmy Montgomery’s form that day was not so much outstanding as extraordinary.

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Sunderland 3 Birmingham 1: Bent double but guess who’s our star

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A great match, after which Birmingham City will feel aggrieved to have lost by two goals, and a great result for us. That completes our run of four home games and we emerge from it unbeaten with eight points, a very decent haul. And this Craig Gordon clip is now in serious need of updating …

Even with halftime approaching, we knew that since this was Sunderland, we could take nothing for granted.

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