There is, of no course, no truth in the rumour that the venue of Sunderland’s visit to Man Utd on Saturday, while still at Old Trafford, is being moved half a mile to the much older cricket ground to reflect the likely scoring pattern.
Dick Advocaat’s finest could even shock us. But then anything short of an emphatic defeat would probably shock most of us.
Before we get on to Pete Sixsmith‘s bleakly compelling report from the 4-1 home defeat to Man City, or even …
Malcolm Dawson writes……….I thought we started well enough. I thought we might have grabbed the lead. But soon normal service …
Monsieur Salut writes: first there was anger at the ref, then disbelief at how easily Sunderland’s defence can be ripped to shreds. The van Aanholt foul, idiotic as it was, happened on the edge of the penalty box (I thought). Free kick, not penalty. Borini’s goal was harshly disallowed. Two borderline decisions, both going against SAFC. That’s the end of the justified anger with the referee Roger East. Then came disappointment. Toivonen – later to score – had a strong header brilliantly saved, after a terrific Yedlin run and cross, but City immediately swept upfield and scored a second, Kevin De Bruyne’s finish looking better than Vito Mannone’s unconvincing attempt to stop it. O’Shea had a wonderful chance to nod home from a corner. Then Mannone fluffed a cross, Sterling hit the post and the rebound hit the keeper and went in for an own goal. Along came a fourth and half time was still 10 minutes away.
‘This is the first “good” side we’ve faced and they’re strolling,’ said Pete Sixsmith. ‘We look reasonable going forward but they are just picking us off.’ That was at 2 or 3-0. His later thoughts were more devastating (see below for three versions of his seven-word verdict) but at least Toivonen’s consolation goal meant we won the second half …
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Malcolm Dawson was about 6 when he went to his first ever live football match. He doesn’t remember much about …
Soon after Salut! Sunderland published its tale of woe, bemoaning the failure of our Man City “Who are You?” interviewee to come up with his promised answers, along came an old friend, Martin Haworth, a City fan based in the North east.
Look him up in the site’s search facility. Martin is a past WAY award-winner. He is very welcome back on these pages.
Here are his quick responses the small selection of questions we did publish:
Salut! Sunderland‘s “Who are You?” series has a strong record of success in attracting warm or witty or wise – and sometimes all three – interviewees from the ranks of opposing supporters. But there are blips as we saw a couple of times last season when QPR and Bradford City fans went AWOL after promising answers to our questions.
This is a quick posting to invite Salut! Sunderland readers to guess how tomorrow’s League Cup game against Man City …
VOTE for Salut! Sunderland at this link: http://www.footballbloggingawards.co.uk/vote-now/
At the last count 2,917,743 people had visited Salut! Sunderland since it was launched at the start of 2007.
Correction: we’ve had that many hits, which does not of course mean individual visitors. Unless everyone who ever came here stomped off after the first look and kept a promise never to return, the 2.9m must be divided quite a lot to arrive at the true number.
There are not many reasons why we should wish to read much about yet another disappointment. But if they come to these pages, there is one very good one: the likelihood of a report of the match, and much more besides, from Pete Sixsmith. For Sixer’s work alone, you should vote for Salut! Sunderland in the Football Blogging Awards – do so at http://www.footballbloggingawards.co.uk/vote-now/ – in the established football blog and football club blog categories. But in the meantime, back to those south coast blues and what Pete made of his long trip and his little break with Pete Horan – oh, and the wretched game, too …