From Arsenal via Hull to Wolves: our honours shortlist

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Who are you? The winners, that is, in Salut! Sunderland‘s grand Who Are You? competition. Could it be Fatima al Shamsi (pictured with reading matter prescribed by us to cure her of supporting Arsenal)? Or the others shown below? The results won’t be known until the season ends. Read on to see if your contribution – or your club if you don’t support Sunderland – made our awards shortlist …

Judging has now begun. The famously half-decent football magazine When Saturday Comes is on board among prize donors. And some time soon, just after the end of the Premier League season, we will announce who has been chosen in first, second and third places for the wit, warmth or wisdom of their replies to the questionnaires we present to at least one opposing fan before each Sunderland game.

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Who are you? We’re Manchester United

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In the second part of his look at Manchester United’s season, Sunday’s game and the meaning of life, Justin Mottershead gives Sir Alex a vote of confidence, tells of a recent encounter with Denis Law, makes passing mention of George Best and berates Salut! Sunderland for remembering David Bellion but inexplicably overlooking Mr Bruce or Mr Evans among men linked to both clubs …


SEE PART ONE, including Justin’s match forecast, BY CLICKING HERE

Salut! Sunderland: Would the Carling Cup and nothing else this season, if it came to that, represent abject failure in your eyes and would that be the time for Sir Alex to stand down?

In short- yes and no. Yes winning the Carling Cup alone is not a successful season at United no matter how you look at it and no Sir Alex should stay on until he believes he’s no longer physically up to the job. He’s always managed to bounce back from a poor season and I’m sure he’ll do the same this time round.

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Sunderland v Manchester United: the view from Old Trafford (1)

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No Sunderland player will need lifting for this one. We have played well against all the top clubs at home this season – and we came within an ace of winning at Old Trafford. Free from relegation stress, playing for pride and a top 10 finish, we can confound the received wisdom that this is an away banker.
Salut! Sunderland came across Justin Mottershead, United fan and football blogger*, when he named Kieran Richardson, just entering his best form of the season, in his worst Premier League XI. Who better, then, to star in our last-but-one Who Are You? feature of the season? Justin sees Kieran scoring the winner (sadly an own goal) but accepts that even this wouldn’t be enough to take the title back to Old Trafford …

Salut! Sunderland: So let’s get this out of the way: who will end up as the top four, in order, and – somewhat easier now than when the question was posed – bottom three?

Chelsea, United, Arsenal and Spurs. Pompey, Burnley and Hull.

Chelsea will win then title because Liverpool reserves will lie down and die, like Benitez and everyone else associated with the club wants them to. Spurs will get fourth just so Kia Joorbachian can sell Tevez to someone else in Europe and wipe the smile off the bitter blues faces.

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Soapbox: a walkover for Manchester’s Reds? Don’t think so

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Yes, we are underdogs for Sunday. No, we do not deserve to be treated as if incidental to the natural order. On paper, it’s an away win but on a big day for reputations to be reinforced, an outstanding Sunderland display could bring a result. Pete Sixmsith reports …

So we approach the penultimate weekend of the Premier League season. There are two games left until the curtain closes on an interesting, if non vintage season.

Last year it was all about who goes down (Newcastle – hee, hee) while this year, according to the media the entire Premier League season will be decided at Anfield, where Chelsea need to win to go into the last weekend and a home game against Wigan to take their third PL Championship.

However, if Chelsea lose at Anfield, the title will go to United as they will obviously win their final two games against Premier League makeweights like Sunderland and Stoke City – that’s if the entire Stoke side haven’t had a mass fight in a field in the Potteries, watched over by bullet headed men with straining at the leash Staffys.

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Manchester United: lame ducks and quack remedies

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We begin our build-up to Sunderland’s final home game of a season that started well, promised much, floundered a lot and finally regathered momentum to guarantee our highest Premier League finish since 2001. Salut! Sunderland offers its own welcome to Manchester United …

Chelsea may have all but killed the title race dead by the time Sir Alex Ferguson’s team takes the field to do battle with Sunderland at the Stadium of Light. A win at Anfield earlier the same afternoon will leave the Blues needing only to beat Wigan at home the following Sunday, assuming United beat us, to ensure top place. A team that has rammed seven goals past three other Premier sides should surely regard that as a simple task against the only one to concede nine in a game.

Everyone, of course, expects United to beat us. It’s a given. For everyone, that is, except two groups of supporters, one determined (Sunderland) and the other merely hopeful (Chelsea).

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Soapbox: the road to Hull

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When you’ve waited all season for a second away win, having raised far too many hopes on the opening day, you should perhaps not be too choosy about how it comes. Pete Sixsmith offers warm commiserations to Hull City, now doomed, and acknowledges our competence but finds plenty to moan about in the quality of refereeing, our lack of goalscoring power from midfield and the colour of political posters on Yorkshire farmland …

I’m really sorry that Hull City are about to exit the Premier League. It’s a proud city with a radical heritage personified not by William Wilberforce, but by Lil Bolocca, a true working class hero, who campaigned tirelessly against the rapacious trawler owners in the 60s, when the loss of a trawler was usually met with a shrug of the shoulders by the fat cats in charge.

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Time to stop hating Chelsea?

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chelseaIt has become almost the stock phrase of every fan who doesn’t support Chelsea. Whatever they think or thought of Manchester United or anyone else, they especially hate Chelsea.

In truth, the attitude predates the moneyed years of Roman Abramovich, whose £7.4 billion fortune puts him in second place (ie after Lakshmi Mittal) among the wealthiest characters in Britain. There was always a feeling that despite its fashionable name and location, there was something spivvy about the club. Going to the Bridge was almost always an unpleasant experience.

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Hull City v Sunderland: pain and pleasure Observed

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Several times a season, Britain’s best newspaper, The Observer, recognises quality elsewhere and comes to Salut! Sunderland, or rather to Pete Sixsmith, for a match summing up. So did Pete witness a game in which our stars, released from the least relegation concerns, produced an away win with free-flowing total football? Not exactly. Pete saw an away win – at last – but it was painful. But let’s hear from a disconsolate Hull first…


RICK SKELTON HullCityOnline.com:

It was a bit of a wimper-ish way to go down. We started appallingly, and Sunderland could have had three in the first 10 minutes. Then we missed the penalty, lost Altidore – who was stupid to react and deserved to get sent off – and the second half was a non-event. We had plenty of the ball but we haven’t broken anybody down in two seasons. We’re in trouble now – there’s going to be a CVA or we’ll go into administration, and I’m certain we’ll start on -10 points next season. I wouldn’t mind Iain Dowie staying as he seems to empathise with the place but will we be able to afford even him?


Player ratings: Duke 7; Mendy 7, Gardner 6, Mouyokolo 8, Dawson 6; Barmby 6 (Fagan 62 6), Boateng 8 (Cullen 75 7), Bullard 5, (Cairney 46 7) Geovanni 7; Altidore 4, Folan 6

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