With the opposition firmly ensconced at the bottom of the league, a team that had lost seven consecutive games and hadn’t kept a clean sheet in the league since August 27th, Pete Sixsmith travelled to the Stadium of Light in high spirits. Here was a great opportunity to cement that push for a top eight finish. By the end he was fantasising about non PC seventies sitcoms and the latest equivalent of Watney’s Red Barrel …
Martin O’Neill finds the right words in a downbeat post-match e-mail to explain another unacceptable performance from a team that ought to be able to make light work of opposition in the throes of Premier League death …
What was it Martin O’Neill told the players after we went out of the FA Cup? End the season in style, finish as high as you can … surely this was not what he had in mind.
This week’s review of what has been going on should probably discuss Spurs and Everton. But there does not seem to be much more to say about either – you can always check out what Pete Sixsmith made of each game by clicking on this link, which gives you the full Sixer’s Soapbox archive – so I will devote most of it to a reminder of the Salut! Sunderland straw poll to find the Player and Young Player of the Season.
We camer a cropper in this fixture last season. We had three points in our grasp at Molineux in December …
There hasn’t been a French Fancies for a while. But it has been a lively spell. There has been the stunning collapse of Olympique de Marseille, champions the season before last and creditable competitors in the Champions League even as their league and Coupe de France form has sunk to rare depths, with only this weekend’s league cup final against Lyon to offer hope from the season (Stop Press: and they won it; with the only goal of a grim game, dominated by lots of falling over, abundant feigning of injury, cards galore and precious little movement).
Beaten 3-1 at home by the Ligue 1 leaders Montpellier last night, they have now stretched their winless run to 12 games. Sessegnon’s rumoured next club, Paris Saint-Germain again, were meant to run away with the league thanks to all that Qatari money but it simply won’t – yet at any rate – run to script. And now Olympique Lyonnais are looking towards the Gulf for heavy investment. Or are they? The signals are contradictory. But even without desert gold, Lyon are gradually returning to something like the form that brought seven successive titles. If Montpellier get in PSG’s way this season, what price Lyon – a great city, by the way – doing the same next season? Assuming Francois Hollande’s bash-the-rich plans don’t drive all the top players out of France in any case …
Here’s a piece I wrote about the business of French football for today’s edition of The National*, published in Abu Dhabi, which the Lyon owner sees as a possible source of a big cash injection …
Readers of Salut! Sunderland have become accustomed to the artistic efforts of Jake, a Sunderland supporter exiled in Spain.
Even before last night’s heavy home defeat, Wolves seemed long gone. Sunderland desperately need to bounce back from a woeful display at Goodison. So what will happen on Saturday? We haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory in recent encounters but surely this one must be won if we serious about a top 10 finish. Salut! Sunderland turned to two familiar characters, Andy and Jo Nicholls*, for this week’s ”Who are You?”. He’s a Wolfie – and has a big input at the http://www.molineuxmix.co.uk/ fan site – but is married to a lass from Silksworth and knows Sunderland well. Both think we’ll win …
The vote, technically, is mine. But I am giving it to you, the readers of Salut! Sunderland.
How many hearts sank when the teams were announced and we had Sess alone up front? What did that selection tell us about Martin O’Neill’s assessment of Ji and Wickham? Pete Sixsmith adopts the role of coroner to conduct a solemn inquest on a bleak day at Goodison …
