Fulham vs Sunderland Guess the Score: when cups fade into relative insignificance

No fanfare, no fuss, no prize. You can bid for Eric Bowers’s Salut! Sunderland in a charity auction at another post – West Ham gone, Man Utd faltering. Forget formalities: Man City-SAFC final – but this is the just-for-fun Guess the Score for Fulham vs SAFC.

How will the Lads fare? Heaven knows we need a win. They do, too, so the pressure is roughly even.

We simply have to reproduce the passion and urgency we show in the cup when it comes down to glamour-free but more important games at the bottom of the Premier.

Have a go. See who comes up with the right scoreline.

And here’s how I preview the game at ESPN (link to the full article: http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/sunderland/id/2688?cc=5739) …

It is possible, but hard all the same, to exaggerate the significance of Sunderland’s trip to Craven Cottage to face fellow relegation strugglers Fulham on Saturday. Forget the dreams of Wembley that still depend on the small matter of clinging to a slender advantage when the second leg is played at Old Trafford on January 22. Fulham away is, for the greater good of Sunderland AFC, as big as a cup final.

Hopes of success and fears of failure should not rest on a single game at this stage of a season with so many more points still to play for. But as early as December 21, my co-contributor to these pages, Pete Sixsmith, identified that day’s home game to Norwich City as the one that would define Sunderland’s season.

If he was right, then Sunderland are down already…

… I was too young to be properly aware of the symbolic magnitude of the first relegation, in 1958, the club having never until then played outside the top flight. Unfortunately, I have witnessed each of the eight that have followed, from 1970 to 2006. Take my word for it: you never acquire the taste.

Catch the Fulham vs Sunderland ‘Who are You?’ at https://safc.blog/2014/01/fulham-vs-sunderland-who-are-you-super-steed-gunman-winger-impressive-poyet/

Sample:

Salut! Sunderland: ‘Which player/s should have been allowed nowhere near Fulham colours?’

Dan Crawford, Fulham fan:

‘not entirely clear what happened but Elrich was apparently wounded in a drive-by shooting, then jailed for four years for possessing two loaded pistols and a quantity of Cialis, of all drugs – ed).