SAFC v Manchester United Who are You?: ‘feasting at Lord Ferg’s table’

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Jake asks the question
Jake wants answers

Dom Raynor*, the editor of ESPNFC.com and therefore Monsieur Salut and Pete Sixsmith’s boss when Salut! Sunderland goes on tour to his pages, is also an avid Manchester United supporter who passes all sorts of arbitrary Salut tests of entitlement to follow this or that club. He studied in the North East so knows all about football in our region (well Darlo, anyway) and shares Sixer’s Rugby League passion. Dom talks about a Sir Alex genius in which stage boorishness and dewy eyes are part of the package, accepts the Poznan row was daft, worries about Martin O’Neill’s managership and drools over Cantona’s lob vs SAFC. Prepare for a cracking read (does that qualify me for a pay rise?) …

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Adam Johnson’s post-Man City blues. Now the turn of the defence

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Gareth in a dugout somewhere
Gareth in a dugout somewhere

When Adam Johnson finally beat the first defender with a corner at Loftus Road, but only by lofting the ball behind the goal, it was a piece of comic cuts football that seemed to encapsulate his season. The expensive move, the high wages and the perception of underachievement have weighed heavily in worrying times for Sunderland. But prompted by a tweet from @GhostofRoker – “For all the stick Johnson is getting, he has got goals and assists to his name, something which we’ve not had from a winger for yonks” – we wondered whether anyone might be willing to take an objective, even complimentary look at the player. Gareth Barker obliged …

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Salut! Sunderland podcast: the case for Connor, the decline of Seb

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Jake experiments with colour
Jake experiments with colour
Even in the Luddite bowels of the anatomy of Salut! Sunderland there is general agreement – in so far as bowels can do something like agree – that the newly introduced podcast is A Good Thing.

Stephen Goldsmith and Gareth Barker have toiled long and hard to bring you this added dimension to the amazing service contributors to this site provide (said an unbiased onlooker).

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How dare we? Where Man Utd lead others will follow.

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Jake suspects a fondness for making mischief
Jake suspects a fondness for making mischief

 

John McCormick writes: I was supposed to be enjoying the onset of Spring in the Yorkshire Dales. It wasn’t quite like that, and the internet connection I had was also short on promise. Never mind, I’ve negotiated the weather and the M6 and am once again able to bring you my thoughts.

In this latest instalment of our new How Dare We? series, rather than bombard you with dodgy statistics and contentious argument, I’m making a case for referees and rules. How dare we? you might ask, given the going rate for fines when half a Premiership team abuses a ref is less than the income from 1,000 spectators at a single match. It’s just part part of the service, ladies and gentlemen, which we spare no expense in bringing to you without fear or favour.

 

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Martin O’Neill and the post-Norwich, pre-Man Utd & Chelsea blues

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Jake: 'what's gone wrong, Gaffer?'
Jake: ‘what’s gone wrong, Gaffer?’

Steve Jacques, a Sunderland supporter, is owed a Salut! Sunderland mug for being the 1,000th follower at Twitter: @salutsunderland. He does not want the Martin O’Neill design. Terry McLoughlin won, to his regret, the Guess the Score competition; he wonders whether the mug’s ‘Team of all Talents’ slogan could be changed to ‘Team of the Talentless’. Pete Sixsmith, meanwhile, finds unwanted vindication for a view of the manager he expressed earlier in the season …

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The Lars Word: where’s Cattermole when a stuttering season needs him?

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Lars Knutsen
Lars Knutsen

With Sunderland playing as if possessed by a death wish and commentators asking what has gone wrong, some supporters are raising awkward questions of their own. What has happened to dressing room spirit? Why was there an absence of intense collective celebration when Craig Gardner equalised on Sunday? Lars Knutsen considers reasons for our current predicament and identifies lack of leadership as the central issue …


Back in mid-January Sunderland were relatively comfortably placed in 11th spot on 28 points, after four victories in six games, coming off an important away win against Wigan and their first double of the season.

Many supporters, including myself, thought things had finally turned around, and that the team was looking upwards rather than downwards.

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The Sunderland-Norwich Soapbox: a textbook demonstration of ineptitude

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Can it get any worse? Jake probably knows the answer to that
Can it get any worse? Jake probably knows the answer to that

Seven full internationals started the game for Martin O’Neill. Pete Sixsmith could be forgiven for wondering whether it was San Marino they had all played for until the manager decided they weren’t quite up to it. This is not the place to come on a wintry Monday morning if your spirits need lifting. It is, however, as incisive an analysis of what is wrong at Sunderland as you’ll find and we are not saying that just because it’s Pete’s birthday …

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