It starts with defeat to Liverpool, with Kevin Friend (referee) and his friend Billy Smallwood (linesman) intent on pleasing their friend Kenny Dalglish by wiping out any legacy of beachball grievance (as if Stuart Attwell hadn’t already, at Anfield!). This is Pete Sixsmith‘s series of incisive seven-word verdicts on just about every Sunderland game. When, rarely, Pete is absent, a supersub does it for him. The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – encapsulates the matchday experiences, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, of a fan who is usually there …
March 20 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Liverpool (1) 2 Liverpool better, but crucial decisions against us
March 5 2011 Arsenal (0) 0 SAFC (0) 0 Take your pick: A solid performance to be proud of or Better than Barca as we thwart Gunners
Feb 26 2011 Everton (2) SAFC (0) Were never in the game; easily beaten
Feb 12 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Tottenham Hotspur (1) 2 Beaten by side one step above us
Feb 5 2011 Stoke City (1) 3 SAFC (1) 2 Take your pick: Horrible result against a truly horrible team or A refereeing performance that defies reasonable analysis
Feb 1 2011 SAFC (2) 2 Chelsea (2) 4 Cracking game deservedly won by arrogant Blues
To see Sixer’s Sevens in full, click here. If an asterisk precedes the comment, the words that follow are the work of someone else because Pete is for once absent from the game or his verdict has been delayed …
You can blame the officals as much as you want and the cheating, diving Suarez who got Cattermole a yellow, but we were very poor against an average side.
Zero tactical ability, no discernable game plan, Bruce yet again displays his inability to motivate and out plan the opposition.
We now have on paper a very capable squad but without the required game plan (Bruces department) we will always be average.
I have said before we should not have given him an extension to his contract as he has spent a lot and acheived nothing ….so far.
We really need to see improvements on the pitch with the resources we have and a more open attacking with intent approach.
“The ghost of Gary McCallister lives on” works as well.