Jake asks: ‘can Moyes rely on money being available to do what’s needed?’
The jury is probably still out on both David Moyes and Ellis Short. Sunderland’s recent run has given hope but that hope will disintegrate if we do not continue to pick up points, from the higher-placed clubs as well as fellow-strugglers. This is where Ellis Short comes in: is he simply being canny, letting it be known through his chief executive Martin Bain that no money is available for the transfer window, whereas Moyes actually has at least some room for manoeuvre? Or is he really willing to risk a massive cut in the value of the club he wants to sell, hoping Moyes’s threadbare squad can hack it but ready to let it sink into the Championship if it does not? Alex McMahon offers some thoughts on these issues…
You never know – you could end up the proud owner of one of these (or a Cardiff one)
Liverpool’s ultimately easy 4-1 win against Stoke City confirms what we already knew – that Monday’s game against Jurgen Klopp’s side will be tough. Even if Simon Mignolet keeps his place and makes more errors than usual, they have bags of goals in them.
That makes Saturday’s game all the more important. The good work of the past eight games, producing 12 points and giving Sunderland a fighting chance of getting out of trouble, would be undermined if we came a cropper at Turf Moor unless we then rose to the occasion at the Stadium of Light two days later.
John McCormick writes: I wasn’t surprised at Ndong’s error but thought Denayer’s was even worse. Perhaps it was tiredness, perhaps just someone failed to move into a space when he expected otherwise. Whatever, those mistakes cost us dear as without them it would have been 1-1, thanks to a goal by Borini. Or would it? Did Man Utd always have enough in reserve to hold on once they’d opened the scoring? Over to Pete Sixsmith, who was there, for an unbiased opinion:
If we can go on scoring goals like this, from Fabio Borini and only by then for pride and goal difference, we’ll be all right.
Having spent Christmas in France – just three nights – I was driving home when the match against Manchester United kicked off. I’d boldly gone for 1-1 at ESPN FC, more from the heart than the head though I did think we had a chance.
David Moyes didn’t have a happy return to Old Trafford as he watched us twice give away possession and then concede. You can find what he thinks of this by sneaking a peek at the carefully crafted letter he wrote to M Salut, and maybe one or two others, immediately after the game:
Jake: catch Sixer’s instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season
What would your seven be? Mine would be“Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, and it cost us”.
The truth is we were always chasing the game after the first goal but giving away the second and third killed us, especially as we, as Pete Sixsmith says in seven words ...”scored the best goal of the game”.
Pete also sent a text saying “Some encouragement but tired last quarter”which perhaps explains not only Man Utd’s last two goals but also Pete’s final seven words, which make my judgement seem a little harsh:
Crikey. You pushed away the turkey and Christmas pud, took off your funny paper hat and interrupted the Queen’s Speech,Frozen or Paul O’Grady (what, no Morecambe and Wise?) to step inside the pages of Salut! Sunderland.
John McCormick: We’re not bottom, so is it a Happy Christmas?
Wrinkly Pete alluded to my dodgy numbers in his post earlier in the week so here’s an overview on our performance to date, along with that of the clubs named in the headline, which were chosen by a free and democratic poll at the start of the season. I’m keeping it brief – only a quick trip to set the scene for a “before and after” post early in the new year, and I’ve included Swansea this time, on the grounds that some people did vote for “another club” and they fit the bill, being as it were, eleven Swans a sinking
It’s a familiar question in the ‘Who are You?’ series: what do you think, we ask opposing fans, of Sunderland – the club, the fans, the city and region, David Moyes?
This is how Dale O’Donnell, our Manchester United interviewee (he’s editor of the the Stretty News fan site), replied:
‘Yeah, I thought we looked after you a bit when Steve Bruce was in charge with the likes of Brown and O’Shea. Then your fans took the p*** a bit and Poznan’d at our expense. That has to be one of the worst small-time things I have seen as a football fan, and I highly doubt it will happen this season if Sunderland face the inevitable.’
After reading Dale’s replies, which I generally found thoughtful and knowledgeable, I asked him: ‘… was it more petty to do it, or more petty to take it seriously?’ He generously allowed for ‘a bit of both maybe’
But what better, I thought, with no football until Boxing Day, than to offer you once again Stephen Goldsmith‘s thoughts on the subject. Stephen, you may recall, once graced these pages, which he also used with Gareth Barker to promote and develop the Wise Men Say podcast until they Poznaned off to the brighter lights of ALS. He’s fondly remembered all the same and this is probably the third time his piece, slightly modified, on the subject has had an airing (so apologies if it feels a little familiar and pardon the outdated references to Sir Alex – the thrust of the article remains valid) …
Dale O’Donnell, impossibly young-looking (r), with ‘the greatest right back in Premier History’. Just to make Neville Cross, Monsieur Salut didn’t recognise him at first
It may be a long way to Tipperary but that’s the part of Ireland from where Dale O’Donnell* hails. And his heart lies at Old Trafford. Dale is the editor of Stretty News, which describes itself as ‘one of the most popular Manchester United related blogs in the history of man’. His passion is almost tangible and, while we may question the collective sense of humour breakdown (suffered by him, too) concerning that little Poznan dance at the Stadium of Light when City pipped them for the title, it is refreshing to encounter a United fan able to ‘enjoy these testing times’ …
For United, ‘testing times’ = not winning everything in sight
