From the Republik of Mancunia came Scott the Red‘s customary questions. Not so much about Sunday’s match, more on last season and this one’s prospects. The first three comments attracted by Monsieur Salut’s interview for his site all cockily predict a United win on Sunday. More responses may be expected once the USA and Far East get up and running today or tomorrow …
Never say Pete Sixsmith is a reactionary old grump. He may like Brian Matthew, old-fashioned football with short back and sides, music-free terraces and fans who have at least some idea of the geographical location of their chosen clubs. But – oops, we’ve just realised there are no buts …
There is no admission fee to Salut! Sunderland, no Murdoch-style paywall to climb before you reach the delights of Sixer, Jake, John McCormick, Malcolm Dawson, Ken Gambles and so many others. But we need help to stay afloat. Hosting costs threaten to rise and we need to pay the bills and, with a bit of luck, find it possible to reward – however modestly – those who give their time and effort to making the site what it is …
Any day now, we may hear from some football official in Sao Paulo, having taken lessons from the Uruguayan FA following the Luis Suarez biting scandal, that Europeans just don’t understand Latin American footballing traditions.
There are clues as to what possessed Bastia’s Brazilian Evaeverson Lemos da Silva, commonly known as Marlon Brandão, to lie in wait as the teams walked towards the dressing rooms after PSG’s 2-0 victory at the Parc des Princes on Saturday night.
He then butted another Brazilian-born player, Thiago Motta, breaking his nose (NB to sub-editors the English-speaking world over: headbutt it tautologous) before scampering off with Motta and bloodied nose in pursuit. See the clip below.
In half a century of following Sunderland, Pete Sixsmith has seen it all:opening day excitement, hope, nerves, dismay, despair … the list could bump his match report off the site. And he got most of that in one day on his trip to West Brom. Read on …
John McCormick writes: I was hoping to make this match but it was not to be and I had to make do with a dodgy feed. When we scored I thought ******, then they scored twice and I thought ****** again, but for different reasons. And then when hope was dying our Viking proved he was worth his new contract with a point-saving goal and I thought ****** once more, this time because two midfielders had scored and that’s a bit of a novelty.
Two forwards scoring would be a bit of a novelty, too, I think. It’s time Fletch and Jozy showed their worth.
That’s enough of my thoughts, what about the manager’s? Here they are, as sent directly to M Salut in his personal post-match e-mail:
Our youngest columnist by some margin, Keir Bradwell, quickly follows Pete Sixsmith back into action with the return of his man-by-man SAFC player ratings. You are at liberty to disagree …
Pete Sixsmith begins another round of instant seven-word verdicts on the games he sees – which is most SAFC games; supersubs stand in if he’s absent – with today’s 2-2 draw at the Hawthorns. He saw Lee Cattermole’s excellent long-range shot beat Ben Foster after five minutes only for SAFC to repeat old bad habits of defending far too deep for the rest of the half, which ended with a Baggies equaliser from a debatable penalty. A lead for Albion on the 74th minute seemed likely to decide the game but Seb Larsson scored a fine late equaliser afetr great work from Jordi Gomez and Patrick Van Aanholt. Jack Rodwell? A debut to forget…
Week after week, a diehard Sunderland supporter Simon R – @sie_ftm at Twitter – includes @salutsunderland in his #FF (Friday follows once tweet abbreviations are converted to tweetspeak). Most Fridays, I thank him.
Today I added my eve-of-season thought: “The usual mixture of excitement, hope and apprehension!” To which Simon threw trepidation into the mix.
Salut! Sunderland welcomes Will Buckley to the Sunderland family after his signing for another of those idiotic “undisclosed fees”, aka £2.5m in this instance if reports are right, from Brighton.
We know little about Buckley but Gus Poyet knows his football, liked what he saw of him at Brighton and decided he was good enough for the Premier. So that’s good enough for us provided the winger now takes the big chance he’s been offered.