Salut! Sunderland extends a hearty welcome to Glenn Loovens, who arrives as a free agent having been released by Sheffield Wednesday, while also bidding farewell to Billy Jones (to Rotherham) and Callum McManaman (to Wigan).
No time to do much more than quote safc.com on the new signing of a much-needed defender, getting on a bit for a footballer at 34 but with bags of experience:
Monsieur Salut discusses the need for a sensible balance between openness and discretion in the pre-season transfer market…
Who knows? By the time I finish writing this, or soon afterwards, Sunderland could have clinched the signings of two strikers, a central defender and a midfielder.
If so, the concerns I am about to address will seem unnecessary and pointless.
But does anyone else share my growing reservations about the indiscreet manner of our approach to recruitment? Well I can answer that. They do, or at least one supporter who posted at Twitter does – he made his view known in a robust fashion that would prevent his tweet’s reproduction at this site.
Monsieur Salut writes: in just over two weeks, only Sunderland’s second season as far down as the third tier kicks off with the televised home game against Charlton Athletic. The striker we wanted but they signed, Lyle Taylor, expects a hostile reception but says he’ll cope and simply concentrate on trying to inflict an opening-day defeat on us. Intriguingly, he volunteered a reason for his reluctance to join SAFC in an interview linked here:’Certain things happened. I’m not at liberty to go into the finer details, but certain things were done and said and at the end of the day, that told me enough’.
Here, Pete Lyons, a freelance writer with our club’s interests at heart, reflects on Sunderland’s decline and the prospects for fighting back… I have italicised song titles I recognise but others, and notably Wrinkly Pete, may spot more and I have added a French singer, Jain, as a new contender …
Okay, so Sunderland have surely fallen as low as it’s possible to go for a club of this stature and with the fan base it has.
But there is a mood of optimism and the feeling that things can only get better (how many song titles?). A new owner and a new manager will hopefully instil a new sense of spirit into the club.
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.
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 …
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) …
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.
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 ….
Malcolm Dawson writes….I was in the environs of Darlington yesterday afternoon and pondered whether to hang about and take advantage of the cash turnstiles to get my first look at the revamped (work in progress) Sunderland AFC but decided that whilst my mobility is a lot better than it was this time last year, my knees are still not up to a couple of hours of standing, so I went home and defrosted the freezer. Try as I might I couldn’t find any reference to the use of the essential tools in the instruction manual, but aren’t you supposed to use a bread knife and 12lb lump hammer? The France/Belgium commentary played in the background and Pete Sixsmith‘s short and sweet texts brought me up to date on events at Blackwell Meadows, whilst I worked feverishly chipping and thawing and wondering why I have so many tortilla wraps, hidden away amongst the frozen prawns and mixed veg?
This morning Peter brings me and you a more detailed view of last night’s proceedings and here it is……
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.
