SAFC v Norwich City Guess the Score: time to bounce back

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Jake: 'soar up the table with a win, Lads'
Jake: ‘soar up the table with a win, Lads’

Nice and early again, here’s the second Guess the Score competition, with or without a prize, of the new season …

Amid all the gloom following our latest no-show, this time at Leicester where the consensus appears to be that we got two back only because City were by then cruising, there has at least been the excitement of the Great Sixer Debate (see the comments at https://safc.blog/2015/08/au-revoir-mvila-new-signing-sees-red-in-norwich-semi-rehearsal/, which can be summarised as Dan Tilley vs The World).

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Taylor Made: a BBC football version of This is Your Life

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Bill Taylor gets lost in stats
Bill Taylor gets lost in stats

Bill Taylor came across a nifty new BBC tool allowing fans of all Premier League teams to calculate their clubs’ performance during their lifetimes. Fellow Sunderland supporters – and others – are invited to have a go and report back any interesting findings …

There’s no evidence to support this, but George Santayana, the Spanish/American writer and philosopher, COULD have been at Wembley in 1937 to see Sunderland clobber Preston North End 3-1 in the FA Cup. Santayana was certainly in Europe at the time.

And the saying he’s most famous for could well be applied to the Black Cats and their long-suffering fans: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

For those of us who have trouble remembering what happened last week, let alone a few decades ago, the BBC’s football website has unveiled a magical new tool to jog our memories.

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A bientôt, M’Vila. New signing sees red in Norwich semi-rehearsal

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Jake: 'let's hope Sixer can feel less bitter as the season progresses ...'
Jake: ‘let’s hope Sixer can feel less bitter as the season progresses …’

Monsieur Salut has already – a little gloomily – speculated that next Saturday’s game at home to Norwich may be the season’s first relegation six-pointer. He also had a conversation with a French acquaintance who remembered almost every detail of Yann M’Vila’s fall from French international grace.

Leicester left Pete Sixsmith in downbeat mood, too, but not enough to put him off scuttling back from the Midlands to catch a Sunderland Under 21s match – against Norwich. He saw a win but also an embarrassing start to M’Vila’s SAFC career …

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Dick’s post-Leicester Advochaat: And what can we learn from today….?

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John McCormick writes: I spent the afternoon in Whiston Hospital, a phone and internet free zone, so I had no idea of what was happening at Leicester. So far so good, you might think, but as we drove up, just as the teams came out, I thought back to the last time I was there. We were taken apart by a Liverpool team that ran at a poor defence and popped in three goals before we knew what had happened.

I hoped history wouldn’t repeat itself, but it looks like it did.
 

Dick's chaat, by Jake
Dick’s chaat, by Jake

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Sixer’s Sevens: Leicester 4-2 SAFC. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

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Jake: catch Sixer's instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season
Jake: catch Sixer’s instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season

Whatever we hoped or expected from Dick Advocaat’s new-look side, it was pretty much as you were at Leicester. Three down in 25 minutes, only Costel Pantilimon standing between City and a hatful by half time and the team in utter shambles. Has Jeremain Lens a clause allowing him to leave by the end of August? First Defoe gave hope, then Fletcher, with their second half goals. But Leicester looked dangerous with every attack and Monsieur Salut takes no pride in seeing that his predicted starting XI was spot-on, since it was also fairly useless. Pete Sixsmith was there, as so often, to take the pain – and this, ahead of his considered view, is his instant, unhappy verdict …

Leicester City (3) 4 SAFC (0) 2 No encouragement to take from this shocker

Jake: 'phew - only 4-2'
Jake: ‘phew – only 4-2’

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