Malcolm Dawson writes: With £10 tickets available via season card holders, a healthy crowd of over 41,515 turned up for this one. The majority, Pete Sixsmith included, were hopeful of a turnaround in fortunes and took their seats looking forward to an opportunity for the Lads to finally stamp their authority on a game there for the taking. Certainly the Villa fans I spoke to before the match expected to lose and had travelled up more in hope than expectation. An early goal ruled out for offside provided false optimism and it wasn’t long before normal service was resumed. Sixer takes up the story………….
Martin’s Musings on SAFC v Aston Villa: O’Neill waits for balls to drop
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Many of those there today thought this was a better performance – abject as opposed to pathetic. We attacked more and both Johnson and Sessegnon showed an improvement, being disappointing as opposed to very disappointing. We know that the club looks at and reacts to this website as there was a total absence of pre match and half time sprinklers popping up so we are grateful that the manager should take time out of his busy day to send us a personal message.
What follows is his positive spin on what was another frustrating day for those in the stands.
Sixer’s Sevens: SAFC 0 Aston Villa 1 – the goal drought continues
M Salut’s mercy dash to be at the side of our ailing team has left me, John Mac, looking after the shop again, so Pete Sixsmith’s full-time text had to wend its way over the Pennines for the second time to bring you the seven words which summarise an afternoon full of hope, anticipation and apprehension.
Predictions league: SAFC, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United, Arsenal
Stephen Goldsmithwrites: this Villa game has that feeling of a must win one. The same kind of nervous tension struck …
SAFC v Aston Villa: high on hope, low on morale
So tomorrow, I make my season’s debut for any game home or away. I will will trembling with apprehension along with many of the rest of the 30,000+ Sunderland supporters who, provided there is no mass abstention post-Boro, are likely to be present.
Crosstalk: Celtic tell Salut! Sunderland to be patient with Martin O’Neill
Stephen Goldsmith writes: that defeat on Tuesday was hard to take. Not because it was ‘Boro, as I don’t particularly class this fixture as any sort of grudge match. There was a spell – when Bryan Robson was in charge – where it felt like a derby match, but it hadn’t previous to that and it hasn’t since. Not to me anyway.
No, the disappointment was the manner of the defeat. The toothless and uncreative performances in the league this season can be glossed over by the fact that we have lost only once – to the champions – and that our draws aren’t individually bad results. Spread those fixtures out over the season and drawing them seems reasonable. Tuesday night wasn’t good enough, however. Not at all.
Age Concern, Martin O’Neill and that gap between Aston Villa and Sunderland
Before anyone starts, Pete Sixsmith is NOT denouncing Martin O’Neill as too old for the job. He just wonders whether his own late-career experience offers any parallel with that of the Sunderland manager …
SAFC v Aston Villa: the fightback starts here so Guess the Score
Sunderland played Aston Villa at home for the first time as a Football League club on Jan 19 1891, home being the Newcastle Road ground.
All of 6,000 souls turned up to watch a 5-1 win, an occasion commemorated in two of Jake’s images. There had been a heavier victory, 7-2, in a friendly the previous season before Sunderland’s admission to the league.
Most Sunderland supporters would settle this weekend for a win of any kind against the same club. For the sake of morale – theirs as well as the players’ – three points are, quite simply, non-negotiable.
SAFC v Aston Villa: a Villain from the teeth of Hurricane Sandy
Poor Holland Pintarch* had not only the hurricane battering her corner of Pennsylvania but, having risen heroically above it to be our Aston Villa candidate for “Who are You?” and answered all the questions in time, saw man-made problems wipe out the bulk of the interview. Apologies to those who followed the link and found only question one and half an answer. Here it is in full. Now Holland, being American, is the type of supporter who dismays a certain type of other supporter, as our exchanges explore. For all that Salut! Sunderland believes her outstanding responses – including interesting thoughts on Bent v Fletcher, Shay Given and the race for the White House – offer a vivid insight into the thinking of the overseas fan who becomes devoted to a British club …
Sixer’s Soapbox: Middlesbrough inflict capital (one) punishment
Malcolm Dawson writes: There were other things to do on Tuesday night. As storms lashed the Jersey shore, M Salut, celebrating a wedding anniversary, walked like a man to see The Jersey Boys. Reading v Arsenal’s 12-goal thriller was on the telly in The Kings Arms, Deptford where the pre match Timothy Taylors was in fine fettle and West Auckland beat Birtley Town 5-4 in a penalty shootout at Darlington Road, after sharing six goals. Pete Sixsmith did what he usually does and pitched up at the Stadium of Light. He left thinking his £15 might have been better spent elsewhere …
