SAFC v Arsenal ‘Who are You?’: on Giroud’s dive, real fans, football’s gentrification

Jake asks the question
Jake asks the question

Sam Limbert**, from onlinegooner.com shares with Andrew Mangan, writer of http://arseblog.com/, the task of commenting on Arsenal, our opponents at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, at ESPN’s club-by-club network. He is also a studious type, preparing his final-year university dissertation comparing football support and religion. His comments on the depth of the game’s relationship with Sunderland as a city is worth reading (they could apply to much of County Durham, too), but there’s also plenty to warm to in his responses to other questions. He even-handedly deplores diving (including one ’embarrassing’ recent piece of simulation by Olivier Giroud, a player we both admire), highly rates Steven Fletcher and Seb Larsson and, sad to relate, predicts a winning Gunners outcome …

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Meanwhile, in a parallel Sunderland universe…

Stephen Goldsmith writes, Well I have finally managed to find the log in details that were stashed away in an offline safe, following the site being hacked by our Iraqi friends. In a new monthly feature, the returning and permanent Gareth Barker explains what may well have been if those little game changing-incidents had panned out differently. So we bring you…

Meanwhile, in a parallel SAFC universe…

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Sunderland, Newcastle safe (ish). And the losers are … QPR, Aston Villa plus Reading or Wigan

John McCormick's examines his source material
John McCormick examines his source material

It may not seem a good time to be predicting relegation for Reading (just after they’ve beaten us), QPR (buoyed by big new signings with an escapologist in charge) and Aston Villa (didn’t we somehow contrive to make even them seem half-decent?). But John McCormick has been pottering around with his blinding statistictal science again, attempting to calculate the impact fluctuating goal differences can have on survival prospects. As things stand, he sees safety for Sunderland but not by a comfortable margin and a possible lifeline for Reading, at Wigan’s expense …

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The Chapman Report: script rewritten by defensive calamities at Reading and Newcastle’s comeback

Bob gets his very own graphic, courtesy of Jake
Bob gets his very own graphic, courtesy of Jake

Into Sixer’s shoes once again steps Bob Chapman‘s, our star writer having maintained his pickiness with long away trips (and even a few short home ones). Jon Keen, who writes for the Reading pages at ESPN, thought Sunderland ‘the worst team to visit the MadStad this season’. Supersub Bob could not see us losing from the moment Gardner struck home his penalty equaliser, just as many expected a comfortable Chelsea cruise once they went ahead at St James’ Park. Instead, characteristic defensive lapses and unconvincing finishing by SAFC, and Chelsea’s surrender on Tyneside, left him fearing the worst for his ‘Sunderland eighth, NUFC relegated’ pre-season wager …

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Martin’s Musings on Reading defeat: another bumpy landing the boss cannot fathom

Jake’s imagination

Monsieur Salut suffered the annoyance familiar to most football fans, stuck 39,000 feet high while the Lads were in action. Turning the phone back on at Heathrow, two and a half hours after the final whistle at Reading, I found my eyes drawn first of all to Martin O’Neill‘s post-match e-mail, the headline – ‘we’ve lost a game we shouldn’t have’ – adding to the gloom of returning to the British winter from Sri Lankan sun. I read somewhere else that we were outplayed for long periods but should still have won. Outplayed! By Reading! Can Martin’s Musings shed further light? …

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Sixer’s Sevens: Reading FC 2 SAFC 1 – Not quite managing the teamwork

Jake gives Sixer star billing
Jake gives Sixer star billing

This is where Pete Sixsmith records his instant verdict, in seven words, on each Sunderland game. When he cannot make it, a supersub steps in and his (or her) seven-word summing-up is preceded by an asterisk. Today he gives his verdict on a game where should have fancied our chances even though Reading are resurgent and we aren’t always quite together:

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Danny Graham: did the booing reflect Mensa minds or moronic dummy-spitting?

Purity of thought, urges Jake
Purity of thought, urges Jake

Maybe being thousands of miles away encourages a more philosophical outlook than is possible to take from the singing section down by the south-western corner flag at the Stadium of Light.

As I lay awake in Sri Lanka awaiting news of the Swansea match from the mobile phone of Mr Sixsmith, up in the East Stand, I did wonder whether Danny Graham would be playing and, if so, whether he’d be booed. The answer to both questions, it seems, is yes (there was precious little other “news” of the game to savour).

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Reading FC v SAFC ‘Who are You?’: another vote for Toon Doon

Jake asks the question
Jake asks the question


Water, maybe tons of melted snow,
may have flowed under the bridge by the time you read this. The questions to Martin Brailli*, a bookseller, football referee and fan of Reading, were answered while emotions were still stirred by seven or eight minutes of heroics at home to West Brom but before the fine win at St James1 Park. He has strong memories of Charlie Hurley’s spell as manager, strong views on what shoud have happened to SAFC for failing to stage a game because of summer rainfall and an unusual philisophy on life at the lower end of the Premier …

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