The ripoff 0871 phone line is no more, at least for people calling SAFC. Few will mourn its passing.
Salut! Sunderland can claim no credit, beyond having drawn the issue to SAFC supporters’ attention, but let us applaud today’s announcement from the club.
John McCormick writes…..
I was at our previous game, which we lost. We did, however, have the semblance of a team and it was our first loss in three games, against a full-on Liverpool team. So full on, in fact, that I endured loads of stick on Monday from deluded scousers who, having listened to Klopp, thought we did nothing but defend. But I knew better and had a feeling we would show what we could do when we played the Premier League champions.
Not that it matters what I think. The really important words come from our manager, who writes to Colin (and maybe one or two others) immediately after each game. And Colin, in his turn, passes the letter on to his team so we can share it with you:
Monsieur Salut writes: what a massive win. Jermain Defoe added to Robert Huth’s own goal to provide the cushion, a fabulous last-minute save from Jordan Pickford cut Leicester’s recovery short and the return of Jan Kirchhoff and Seb Larsson was crucial to the second-half breakthrough.
Pete Sixsmith had donned red and white, headed up past Durham and then … those with memories of his activities this time each year will know what happened next. He carried on due north to the chosen location for his Santa duties. These took him not to the game, but to the dark side of the Wear-Tyne divide, safe in today’s kind of red and white. Meanwhile, A N Other chips in with the seven-word verdict …
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Jake: catch Sixer’s instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season
Another week, another injury, this time Lynden Gooch who will be out for up to three months after damaging an ankle ligament playing for the Under 23s last Monday. Before that, it was Paddy McNair, whose season ended with the injury picked up in the win against Hull City. Rachel Johnson* returns to our pages to report on mental challenge McNair faces as he battles to regain fitness …
Ask Jeremy ‘Clock Stand Paddock’ Robson where Sunderland play and he’ll say ‘Roker Park’
Time to give readers a tap on the shoulder and remind them to come up with an entry in our Things We Do For Love contest.
You see the prize above – a magnificent print of Roker Park – and we have already had some excellent entries which can be seen at the earlier posts: https://safc.blog/category/salut-competition/ – and Monsieur Salut’s work will have his work cut out when he gets round to choosing a winner.
Most of us are currently looking no further than Saturday’s visit from last season’s unexpected (but welcome) champions Leicester City. It is game Sunderland really need to win. But even the mighty boost to morale that a victory would bring would then subside if we went to Swansea a week later and fell to fellow strugglers. With that in mind, a new writer to us, Rachel Johnson*, looks at what the experts are making of that trip to South Wales …
Monsieur Salut writes: Tim Burke* has Millwall connections and should perhaps be wearing a ‘you all hate us, we don’t care’ T-shirt. Instead, he fell in love with the Foxes after moving to Leicester and much of the footballing world fell in love with his adopted team in May. It was a season he enjoyed for a reason never experienced by a Sunderland supporter who was not alive in 1936. This season? Tim’s happy, even if tongue in cheek, to avoid the drop . Great attitude and great replies – and maybe he can take heart from Sunderland’s history; we won the FA Cup in the season following our last top flight title …
It came out of the blue. A message from a Twitter user plugging Heristage, ‘the only French-language site dedicated to English football’. The message directed me to a long and superbly detailed analysis (in French but at this link) of Sunderland AFC’s ‘Bank of England’ era, that period of the 1950s that older supporters identify as the trigger for our decline.
Heristage turned out to be the work of Rémi Carlu*, a young, half-French/half-English lover of the game as played here, the country of his mother. He’s currently studying back in the UK and happily agreed to explain himself. Rémi doesn’t support Sunderland – he favours Chelsea (mmm…) – but cares enough about his chosen project to have researched us thoroughly; he also thinks, I’m afraid, that we should accept relegation in return for rebuild …
But all his views are fascinating, all the more so coming from a semi-outsider. I commend this to you as a great read …
Two good wins followed by a logical defeat at Anfield after we’d held out well for 75 minutes and even had two good chances to go ahead.
The positive way to look at our last three games is not to think in terms of two-steps-forward-one-back but to see each of them offering signs that we can break free of the bottom three.
