That, in case anyone needs a clue, is our Premier League record since Oct 24.
So if Steve Bruce needs more than a simple “get lost” to offer Rafa should reports of a Liverpool bid for loan deal for Kenwyne Jones contain even a hint of truth, that might be a good place to start. I am not sure how it’s pronounced but it tells a striking story when written down (I realise it should really be LDLWLLDLLDDL, but X for a draw would sound better).
Week after week, Salut! Sunderland asks the same question of a fan of the next team we’re about to play. …
OK, I try to be a generous soul. I let people in ahead of me in traffic, help around the house and give to good causes even when feeling skint. Even so, there are limits. No explanation is needed for all the marks of four or five out of 10 I gave Sunderland players, in today’s Observer, after the debacle of Stamford Bridge. They were for men who are not yet/not currently or never will be good enough. But how one earth did I conjure a couple of sixes? …
Click here to see my match report – Chelsea 7 Sunderland 2: an appreciation
But first let us allow a Chelsea fan to speak::
Trizia Fiorellino, Chelsea Supporters Club –
We could have had ten or twelve goals – they were absolutely awful. Anelka was outstanding and it seems Carlo now knows that the diamond is not the only system to play. We played more free-flowing football in the style of when Hiddink was manager, with Ashley Cole coming down the wing and putting in crosses in the first half and Zhirkov in the second half. The players passed better and all seem to be of the same mindset. Zhirkov, Ashley Cole and Belletti were standouts.
The fan’s player ratings:
Cech 7; Ivanovic 8, Carvalho 8, Terry 8 (Alex ht 7), A Cole 9 (Zhirkov ht 9); Ballack 7, Belletti 9, Lampard 8; J Cole 7, Anelka 10, Malouda 8
Niall Quinn and Steve Bruce are apparently the guests on Goals on Sunday, on Sky tomorrow. How will they explain away this humiliation?Colin Randall is still apoplectic after another shambolic away performance …
“Appreciate,” gloated the lippy teenager in blue as she walked past the Sunderland end on the way back to her front-row seat after a wander into the concourse nearly stopped her seeing the fourth goal.
At badminton the other night – I live on the wild side – a Chelsea fan accused me of gamesmanship. He wasn’t suggesting I’d tampered with the shuttle but that I was trying to lull him towards false feelings of security by expressing fears that Sunderland might be facing a cricket score away at Chelsea. I needn’t have worried, if one of these crystal ball gazers turns out to be correct …
Over at the Blackcats e-mail group that provides such wisdom and entertainment, Jeremy, in Ontario, was worried about the shortage of banter. Were we just going to fax Chelsea the points to save having to turn up?
If so, I replied, could someone please save me turning up, too, and let me know in advance what to say when The Observer comes on for the fan’s verdict at 5pm?
Back came two versions of the same game. Take your pick, though Sunderland fans will prefer the offering from the Scottish islands.
Click on the clip and enjoy the fun.
Some day soon, we will probably arrange these videos so that they appear in a permanent link list in one of the sidebars (not least because the clips themselves don’t fit there).
There were no neutrals. Everyone outside Leeds wanted Sunderland to win the 1973 FA Cup Final. Continuing our coverage of Lance Hardy’s new book** on the sensational upset our Lads caused at Wembley, Pete Sixsmith wallows in the memory of a quite different world …
Photos from 1973 by kind permission of the Sunderland Echo
Patrick Vieira on £150,000 a week; Kenwyne Jones valued at £40m; Manchester United with debts of £750m and tickets for Saturday at Chelsea at a tad under £50.
Money, money, money. I don’t think the game has ever been so wrapped up in finance and it somewhat dissipates the pleasure of watching a simple football match.
There were days when football, and everything around it, was much more innocent. I was reminded of this as I read Lance Hardy’s excellent book, Stokoe, Sunderland and ’73.
The title tells you everything you need to know; it’s a book about the greatest FA Cup victory in living memory, the manager who engineerd it, the players who delivered it and the fans who witnessed it and who have never quite got over it.
Another spot of inconsequential fun from the Goviral campaign team who brought you the video for the Sky Sports 92 …
Since I do know Chelsea season ticket holders who never go to an away Premier game but consider themselves proper fans, Gill Brown* must be ultraproper. Saturday found her in Hull, ready for the game that was sure to be played – but wasn’t. Gill, who is also a useful badminton player (well, a lot more useful than me), offers refreshingly honest answers on Toon Doon (oddly sympathetic), cheating (oddly sympathetic), club & country (tightlipped but gives it away) and Gareth Hall (“who?”). Can she be serious in thinking we might get a draw at Stamford Bridge this weekend? …
Salut! Sunderland: Top of the Premier with many people tipping you for the title, winning in the Champions League, likely to put in a strong FA Cup challenge and yet still some Chelsea fans complain. What more do the boo boys – minority though they may be – want?
I think perhaps some of the fans get very frustrated by the style of football being played and the way we tend to grind out results. I hate the “boo” culture, I don’t see any point in booing your own team, it is totally counter-productive. I would never ever boo my team no matter what and it makes me feel sad to hear it.
Transfer windows open out onto a heap of speculation, some of it fuelled by wily agents, some of it appearing to be evidence of – shall we say – the imaginative powers of football reporters. In one window, during Roy Keane’s time, only half a dozen or so of the scores of names in the Sunderland AFC official website’s “rumour mill”, culled from media reports, were remotely in the club’s sights, and several actual targets had not been mentioned at all. What, then, is the truth this time round? …
First, the papers said Steve Bruce was ready to sell Kenwyne Jones.
Then he appeared to heap scorn on the claims. Now, on one interpretation iof his latest remarks, he’s practically launched a public auction.