Soapbox: the January transfer window – board it up!

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Football clubs up and down the land are setting out their stalls for the January sales, and looking around in the hope of snapping up bargains of their own. Pete Sixsmith would cheerfully save them all the bother. It’s all enough to make him toy with the attractions of Shildon at home instead of the FA Cup this weekend …

So, the eagerly anticipated transfer window has opened at last. Excuse me while I yawn, while Sky Sports News presenters have 28 days of collective orgasms as they break the news that Gillingham have signed a Spurs Reserve who not even Harry Redknapp has heard of and while tons and tons of newsprint are wasted on “exclusive” stories that turn out to be so exclusive that they are pure fiction.

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Pauline McLynn: Father Ted’s char cheering shamelessly for Aston Villa

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Pauline McLynnDLR Library

An actress’s life can bring varied demands. After being made up to look a lot older for the part of Father Ted’s housekeeper Mrs Doyle, Pauline McLynn* was required to appear nude as Libby in Shameless. But never mind that: she’s here because she is a keen Aston Villa fan. As a lass back in Ireland, she’d flirted with Liverpool and Steve Heighway before being converted by Paul McGrath. Salut! Sunderland gallantly chose a discreet image …

Salut! Sunderland: Things may change before we meet next week you but it has been looking a little ominous at Villa Park with some pundits even mentioning the dreaded R word. Surely not relegation, even after the 4-0 drubbing at Man City.

The only R that I agree with is Resurrection, and I think the game against Chelsea proved we can still take a game to the opposition. Villa are notorious for going downhill a bit at this time of year but I feel we on the rise again now so look out Sunderland.

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Villa ‘Who are You?’: when Ashley Young has us groaning

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We went to Chelsea to improve on a 7-2 drubbing and beat them 3-0. Aston Villa had fared even worse last time at the Bridge – 7-1 – and Sunday’s six-goal draw will have done wonders for morale. Isn’t that downright typical, just before they play us? Dominic Wren*, a Villa fan teaching PE in the United States (that’s him with a middle school pupil) regrets the crisis created by Martin O’Neill’s departure but reminds the squad that their job involves being paid for something 40,000 fans would gladly do for nothing …

See also: Pauline McLynn, Villa-supporting actress from Father Ted and Shameless

Salut! Sunderland: Things may change before we meet you but it has been looking a little ominous at Villa Park with some pundits even mentioning the dreaded R word. Surely not!

Dominic (speaking before the Chelsea game): On paper, no chance, but we all know the game is not played on paper. The effort, passion, pride, intensity, what I refer to as the intangibles, the only things the individual player can control are definitely not present at the moment. Which as any fan will tell you, is the least they expect when they pull on the beloved jersey.

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Bomber Brown, player power and Michael Gray’s Ferrari

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It was a good day at the office for the Salut! Sunderland Comments department yesterday. Some sharp thoughts on Blackburn’s plight and on our own progress, plus a simple, moving response to our tribute to Ralph Coates. And once again Frank Johnson, who covered Sunderland for the Northern Echo for four decades, popped up with priceless memories. We just hope he doesn’t mind them being elevated in this way to ensure a wider audience …

I wonder what Alan Brown (the manager, not the player) would make of today’s game and today’s players.

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Son of Durham, star of Spurs and Burnley: Ralph Coates RIP

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Image: Tottenham Canadian Supporter’s Club

Technical issues may have prevented this smashing tribute by Jeremy Robson being as widely seen as it deserved. Ralph Coates, who died a week before Christmas after suffering a stroke, was one of the great Durham-bred footballers who made a mark away from the region. He was a man in the mould of Jimmy Armfield, grateful for the career and life his skills had given him: “When I was playing, our wages reflected the era – I was on nothing like the £30,000 a week that today’s top players can earn, but I lived comfortably and was not looking to see if I had the money to pay the next bill when it came through the post.” …

The internet provides instant access to information about any subject.

Or at least so it seems. It came as a shock at the start of the Spurs v Newcastle Utd game when there was a tribute to Ralph Coates, the former Burnley, Spurs and Orient winger who had recently departed. I hadn’t heard the sad news of Ralph’s death even though he had passed away on Dec 17, aged 64.

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Blackburn Soapbox: comfort zone for SAFC, danger zone for Rovers

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Sunderland 3 Blackburn Rovers 0: a thoroughly satisfactory scoreline as Pete Sixsmith sits in on lessons in finishing from our strikers (somewhat necessary after the zillion misses against Blackpool). Pete lauds a classy performance from Jordan Henderson and warns Rovers of danger ahead before delivering a lesson of his own to SAFC which he earnestly hopes Niall Quinn will see is heeded …

Another year has dawned and with it the realisation that my time on this planet is now approaching its own diamond jubilee. So, a good way to start Year 60 is a win at home against traditionally difficult opponents.

Except they weren’t particularly difficult. They were missing a good goalkeeper, a dominant centre half and anyone with any idea of how to put the ball in the net.

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Man Utd, Preston and the Ferguson dynasty: wrong and right

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UEFA Champions LeagueImage: tpower1978

The TalkSport site has been having some fun recalling the various times Sir Alex Ferguson – that’s him, gagged, in the image above – has blown his top. The research may well have taken years, so copious is the archive.

Why did they bother? Ah, then you haven’t heard that the Manchester United boss has – TalkSport’s words – “reacted angrily to the sacking of son Darren at Preston by demanding the return of three of his Man United players from their loan spells at Deepdale”.

Hardly the most important talking point of the year just ending, but interesting all the same. And Salut! Sunderland – or, since this is a democracy, one part of it – is instinctively on SAF’s side.

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