Sunderland vs Aston Villa Guess the Score: the crunchiest of crunch matches

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Jake: 'Ha'way the Lads - do the business'
Jake: ‘Ha’way the Lads – do the business’


Stan Collymore, well-known Villa fan and – in Monsieur Salut’s humble opinion – not a bad radio pundit, had a golden opportunity to reach out to both sets of supporters ahead of this Saturday’s crucial relegation battle between Sunderland and Aston Villa.

He didn’t reply to the invitation, though we must allow for the possibility, remote as I believe it to be, that it was not forwarded to him. Instead, we had a marvellous set of responses from a free-thinking lifelong Villa fan, and a director of the club’s Supporters’ Trust, Howard Hodgson, and these will appear at Salut! Sunderland tomorrow (see footnote* for a sample).

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Sunderland thank their lucky Spurs; Tadcaster hosts Sixer pondering season ticket renewal

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Photos by Malcolm Dawson
Photos by Malcolm Dawson

Can we shoot ourselves in both feet each week and still taste salvation again? All the teams around us except Villa seem to be losing and QPR kept up the process when the only Premier League game of the day saw them squander the remaining game in hand, losing 2-1 to Spurs. Pete Sixsmith relished the weekend off from watching Sunderland, took himself off to Tadcaster with Malcolm Dawson and got back home in time to see our next opponents keep up their winning sequence …

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If Poyet cannot make Sunderland less turgid, can he make turgid work?

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Jake: 'not convinced, Gus'
Jake: ‘not convinced, Gus’

Amid all the gloom that has descended over the collective support base of Sunderland AFC, the one sentence that some will have found hardest to stomach after the narrow escape from a fifth successive defeat against Hull was Gus Poyet’s statement, in his post-match e-mail reproduced here: “I think we played well.”

Some of us would have taken the 1-1 draw at Hull if offered it beforehand, but for no better reason than that the rotten form and uninspiring tactics of recent weeks, all season with the exception of a couple of games if we’re honest, made another defeat much more likely.

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Sixer’s City Soapbox: Cheap beer, not much else at Hull City

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John McCormick writes: listening to Gary Bennett on Radio Newcastle’s stream couldn’t give me the full picture of an eventful night at Hull. The pre and post- goal screams of

“Fill that hole! Fill that hole! Oh no, if we could see it up here how could they not see it down there?”

did not inspire confidence. But we muddled through.

Or did we? Here’s the man of the moment, Pete Sixsmith, and his verdict.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Hull City 1 Sunderland 1. Rodwell to rescue in late revival

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Jake pins Sixer to the wall
Jake pins Sixer to the wall

Colin Randall writes: Pete Sixsmith watched the first half in dismay. To my ‘utterly atrocious’, he admitted to feeling ashamed. Sunderland perked up in the second half, Patrick van Aanholt finally brought some pace and width and we were level. Mike Dead had booked Wes Brown for the early challenge (a fair one) from which Huddlestone’s low free kick was turned in neatly by N’Doye. A point was better than none though Jack Rodwell, who had headed PVA’s cross via an arm into the net, fluffed a chance to grab a winner and N’Doye was denied by a breathtaking stop by Pantilimon. The first posting of the Sevens had my emergency verdict – but it is now updated with Sixer’s own seven word summation …

Jake: 'did we actually deserve a point?'
Jake: ‘did we actuallty deserve a point?’

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Wise Man Says: where has all the fun gone?

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Nic Wiseman
Nic Wiseman
Where has all the fun gone?

Nic Wiseman has been gazing into his navel at the current state of football in general and Sunderland in particular. Nothing he says alters the right of any individual to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise (and we shall be vigilant about comments left below) but it’s plain to anyone reading his words that here is a lifelong fan who is losing the will to support …

Football has been kicking its way down Skid Row for some years now, but events over the last couple of days have made me question if I really want to finance this increasingly rancid sport any more.

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