John McCormick writes: end of season reviews have just begin, with Lars Knutsen providing the first with a piece entitled “Hire and fire”. Some time in the next couple of weeks, depending on how many reviews there are, Pete Sixsmith will bring the season to a close.
But M Salut called on Pete to perform a duty first, and Pete stepped up to the mark in fine style. Here’s his take on the hiring, but perhaps not the firing, of a manager who promised so much and delivered nothing but dust:
Monsieur Salut writes: as perhaps the least surprising outcome of the worst Sunderland season since, well, the last worst Sunderland season (think McCarthy), David Moyes is no longer our manager.
Some will say he should never have been our manager. I am honest enough to say I welcomed his appointment, much as I would have wished Big Sam had stayed.
STOP PRESS – Lars submitted this piece well before the season end, before the Arsenal game in fact. It has been sitting in the draft folder for a week and would you know it – within minutes of it going live Moyes resigns. MD
Malcolm Dawson, deputy editor, writes: at the end of a season that will linger long in the memory as one we would wish to forget, Salut! Sunderland approached both its regular and occasional contributors for their thoughts. Don’t be fooled by the name – Lars Knutsen is Mackem through and through and even though his work took him away from his Boldon roots to Cambridge via Scandinavia and the USA. he retains his love of SAFC. Working as he did in the pharmaceutical sector you’d think he might have driven his troops into researching a cure for the compulsion to follow a club that has been a long term underachiever but no – like the rest of us he is stuck with his lot.
You can read more of Lars’s contributions here
Monsieur Salut adds: a series of painful steroid injections to a dodgy knee reminded me today it was time to launch this series of end-of-season reviews. With thanks to Malcolm for preparing Lars’s contribution for publication, let me make it clear the series is open to all Salut! Sunderland readers who have time and inclination to offer their own reviews of a season. Just let us know – leave a message below or use the contact link you’ll find somewhere on the home page
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Rob Hutchison – inexplicably renamed Ron when this first appeared – gets to lots of games, almost all of them away since he’s exiled in the south. He and his daughter, Olivia, enjoy the day out, like meeting up with old and new friends and then – for the most part – endure the football. Here are Rob’s final one-word ratings of the season after watching the champions tear us apart at Stamford Bridge. ‘And so it’s done,’ says our man of few words. ‘Thank God for that.’ Monsieur Salut’s ratings at ESPN FC appear in parentheses and are not so different …
Owing to a slight technical hitch – the editor’s incompetence in overlooking that there was a draft and incomplete headline …
A dire end to a dire season. In the end Chelsea strolled past us.
David Moyes says in his post-match missive that we tried to make the gap as small as possible. Did we succeed? Probably, because it’s a massive gap between us and even 16th place.
What else does he have to say? Find out for yourself, here’s what he wrote:
Monsieur Salut writes: Pete Sixsmith was right to duck out of this rotten finale. Players crying off – “I’m hurt” – and players just not up to it. We took the lead and went on to be thrashed, but hats off to South Shields on winning the FA Vase with a great 4-0 win over Cleethorpes …
Malcolm Dawson writes: a bit like Jermain Defoe, Salut! Sunderland‘s own Pete Sixsmith is much in demand. Not only is …
One of the many joys of the various seasons’ editions of ‘Who are You?’ has been the way it has unearthed sparkling anecdotes, unexpected encounters between supporters, or supporters and players and/or officials and fascinating details of people’s lives. David Millward* has been here before, telling us about his allegiance to Chelsea but, much more interesting, recounting the story or why everyone calls him Sid. An uncle was the British bandleader Sid Millward (of Nitwits fame, no less) and the tale is told here .. Sid is now in the USA from where he sends this welcome set of answers to our questions, thus ending the 2016-2017 series. We learn, for example, that he was dumb-struck by the shortness of girls’ skirts on a cold Wearside night and also how much he loathes the sight of sponsorship advertising on players’ tops …
Last game of the season means last of the 2016-2017 ‘Who are You?’ interviews. We have not one but two from Chelsea supporters (a consequence of Monsieur Salut panicking unnecessarily and fearing we might get none). Mark Williams* comes to us via a Sunderland supporter, his friend and occasional Salut! Sunderland contributor Jim Minton. If you ever need to catch the pair of them and there happens to be an African Cup of Nations tournament on, that’s where to head. They make it each time but be aware the next one is not until January 2019. Book now for Cameroon … and thanks Mark for a splendidly thoughtful set of responses …
Chelsea secured the Premier League title by beating West Brom a week ago. On the day of the 38th and final Premier League games for each club, the Blues will meet Sunderland at Stamford Bridge. Several football predictions go with a victory for the home team.