Salut! Sunderland is always happy to help out when other clubs’ fan sites come calling. Russell Wilson, who is part of the team at the QPR Report Blog, posed a few questions ahead of tomorrow’s game. Pete Sixsmith is better at these things but Monsieur Salut did the honours for once …
When we first had George McCartney, I liked him. A long way short of perfection, but good going forward and …
If you judged QPR by the price on the away ticket – £45, with scant concession for pensioners, for deeply …
Pete Sixsmith salutes a reasonable if losing performance at Spurs (though M Salut thinks he was unduly impressed by O’Shea), but then admits he has been looking at the fixtures. It gave him a nasty bout of nerves for Sunderland’s immediate future …
Readers were asked to suggest what Pete Sixsmith, in the much-seen image from Molineux, was saying or thinking at Sunderland slumped to defeat. The invitation produced a sprinkling of replies, but only one winner …
Martin O’Neill voices praise for the team’s effort at Spurs, thinks we might have snatched something and rues our inability to score. He is right on all counts; we just weren’t quite good enough to maike promising spells matter …
Dear Colin,
We put a big, big effort into the game, I thought, before they scored and certainly in the last 25 minutes of the match.
Tottenham are a very fine side. Overall I’m disappointed that we didn’t get something from the game, particularly as it looked as though the storm had been calmed.
This is where Pete Sixsmith captures the glory and shame, hope and despair, excitement and ennui of the Sunderland matchday experience. When, rarely, Pete is absent or delayed, a supersub does it for him and the seven-word verdict is preceded by an asterisk. Pete’s full analysis of the game will usually appear within a day or two.
At one point in the second half at White Hart Lane today, Pete turned and said: “We’re the nearly men.” Sessegnon had just made a promising run, only to be outmuscled as he worked his way towards a dangerous position. McClean came on and nearly had enough to beat his man and get in dangerous crosses. Nearly, but not quite enough each time to make an impact on a top three/four team. The sloppy pass – see Sixer’s verdict – was Wes Brown’s; it was not the only one by a long shot, but it was the one that created the opening for the winner. Yes, Spurs then missed an open goal; we’d done that in the first half, nearly making a brief good spell count. Not a terrible day; nearly a half decent one.
The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – sums up what all Sunderland supporters feel, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, in the words one who is usually there …
Dec 18 2011 Tottenham Hotspur (0) 1 SAFC (0) 0 One sloppy pass undoes a solid performance
Dec 11 2011 SAFC (0) 2 Blackburn Rovers (1) 1 Sheer perseverance gives MON vital winning start
Dec 4 2011 Wolverhampton Wanderers (0) 2 SAFC (0) 1 More points sacrificed through weak, sloppy defending
Here is the statement released by a very contrite sounding Nicklas Bendtner. He’s obviously been reading Birflatt Boy’s headmasterly strictures.
Three players, not two, involved in the Newcastle car vandalism allegations? Martin O’Neill has more work to do than any of us imagined.
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Another Saturday morning review of the week as seen by Salut! Sunderland …
Martin O’Neill’s dramatic last-gasp win in his first game as manager set us up for a great week for banter and upbeat thought.
Whatever happens at Spurs tomorrow afternoon – and no pundit is likely to give us a hope – we have seen reason to believe better times may lie ahead.
Titus Bramble, Nicklas Bendtner, Lee Cattermole and any other individual – famous or not, but suspected of criminal conduct – remain innocent until courts decide otherwise. Nevertheless, Birflatt Boy is alarmed at what a lot of highly paid footballers consider acceptable behaviour …
It’s remarkable to find some people who still expect footballers to be role models.
