Prepare for more pain. The beatings will continue until morale improves. After a night when Sunderland collectively expressed a Premier status death wish or – if you prefer – gave a new definition to the notion of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, we have the customary sets of player ratings. First up is Rob Hutchison, with his quirky one-worders and marks averaging 5 out of 10 for the starting line-up. Keir Bradwell’s wordier condemnation is at https://safc.blog/2015/02/masochism-2-sunderlands-player-ratings-vs-qpr-worse-than-norwich-away/ …
Jake captures the Bard, with thanks to Owen Lennox
John McCormick writes: I wrote an upbeat introduction to the weekend’s e-mail from the manager. Today, I can’t repeat the feat. I’ve travelled across Liverpool to lose a game of chess, which meant the team lost the match, and while taking solace at the bar and watching the final minutes of an apparently entertaining Liverpool v Spurs it transpired we’d once more self-destructed. How does our manager explain this? Let’s find out as M Salut shares with us the e-mail he received shortly after the game:
Jake’s reaction echoed Sixer’s: ‘why am I not surprised?
At half time, we were two down and poor old Pete Sixsmith already had a seven-word verdict: ‘Abysmal from the first minute. Utterly hopeless’. If that seems like sitting on the fence, there was little more than some blustering huff and puff to come. Pete had known at the interval, most of us had known, it would not get too much better. Never mind that Martin Atkinson’s interpretation of the handball rule left the impression defenders could stop, pick up the ball and still get away with it. Rob Green made his saves, but keepers do. We simply deserved no more than this wretched defeat. I shall not be staying up for Gus Poyet’s explanation for the exposed left flank that led to both QPR goals. As Nick Barnes said on BBC Radio Newcastle. Sunderland remains happy hunting ground for ‘the striker who cannot score (Zamora), the team that cannot win (QPR)’…
Malcolm Dawson writes……When I was a kid I watched the FA Cup Final on TV religiously. It was virtually the only live televised football available to those of us growing up in the fifties and sixties.
Years later I could still have told you every result and every goalscorer between 1959 and 1978, but I’m not so sure I could now.
Jake thought he had ways of making them talk STOP PRESS – Within an hour or so of this going live QPR fans were quick to step into the breach described in the introduction. Thanks to JC and Josh (and any others waiting in the wings) for promptly filling the gap.
All seemed in order when Monsieur Salut went off to Cuba. A QPR fan, who had long ago volunteered to do the Who are You? interview, had the questions and promised replies. Thinking only of the transfer window and intervening results, I told the interviewee, Gareth Parker, to take his time as ‘things – and therefore your answers – will change between now and Feb 10-ish’. I was not thinking of ‘Arry’s dodgy knees (M Salut knows all about those) and I certainly wasn’t implying that the answers could wait until after the game.
But despite returning from holiday to an email suggesting some revised post-Redknapp questions, which I duly sent last Friday, Gareth has remained silent.
If any QPR fans fancy answering in his place, just go to Comments, specify the question number and give your reply. If there is a good response – and that’s a big if, given how close we are to the game – we’ll come up with a prize.
And apologies to all readers who enjoy this series for this one lapse. I am sure Gareth either overlooked it of has a perfectly good reason for not being able to oblige. We should, however, have a cracker for the Bradford City cup game …
Nick Sharkey: with thanks to the Sunderland Former Players’ Association*
Nick Sharkey, a prolific scorer for Sunderland in the 1960s and by all accounts a terrific man, has died at the age of 71. Salut! Sunderland extends deep sympathy to his family and friends.
SAFC.com puts it like this: “The Scot scored 62 goals in 117 appearances for Sunderland during the early to mid Sixties and was an active, prominent and extremely popular member of the Sunderland Former Players’ Association*.”
Jake: have your say on Keir’s assessments , then guess tomorrow night’s score
Apologies to all for pulling these two items together, a necessity given constraints on time between the two games, at Swansea on Saturday and at home to QPR tomorrow. Agree or disagree with Keir Bradwell’s man-by-man ratings from the 1-1 draw at the Liberty Stadium and then have a stab at the scoreline in tomorrow’s crucial game…
The big mystery of the day is this: did Pete Sixsmith go to Swansea after all? A very late Sixer’s Seven – “Back across Offa’s Dyke with a point” – suggests he may have done. Only time will tell. BUT here’s how Rob Hutchison saw it, player by player, in a word and a mark out of 10 for each …
Jake captures the Bard, with thanks to Owen Lennox
John McCormick writes: How did we do at Swansea last season? I, and everyone here, will no doubt have forgotten, or will no doubt want to. So, with today providing a measure of our progress how do you feel? Personally, I’m happy. But is our manager?
Let’s see what he says as M Salut shares with us the e-mail Gus crafted specially for him, and perhaps a few chosen others, with the hope there’s nothing lost in translation:
