Birflatt Boy: bewildered by Bruce’s bewilderment


Birflatt Boy pulls no punches in a unforgiving verdict on Steve Bruce. To some, it will appear excessively harsh and even unfair; tomorrow you will find a contrary argument here. Take your pick …

In today’s Sunderland Echo, it is reported that Steve Bruce confesses to being bewildered at the early-season pressure he finds himself and his players under, especially considering the club is in lower mid-table rather than in the relegation zone.

He is quoted as saying: “There’s a huge, big expectation here – an expectation that you would expect from a Champions’ League side.”

All this comes in the wake of sporadic shouts of “Bruce out” when Sunderland shipped two early goals against West Brom on Saturday. “I don’t know where it comes from – probably the size of the crowd and the passion of the place itself,” he said.

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Steve Bruce: would winning at Swansea still not restore faith?

Why is it we get busier when times are bad? Three games into a new season seems incredibly early to be screaming for the boss’s head but M Salut was taken to task here after saying a managerial change so soon would be “absurd”. Are we all so fickle that a 3-0 romp at Swansea would have supporters singing his praises, or is that too laughable a forecast to be taken seriously?

Birflatt Boy throws his weight behind the revolution and joins the mob surrounding the heavily fortified managerial compound …

I haven’t taken the time to study the odds at the bookies to see just how likely the cognoscenti think it will be for Steve Bruce to be the first PL manager to win the sack race.

But I do have a question for all Sunderland fans: is it too early to sack him, or is it too late?

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Blind nonsense: ‘getting behind the Lads’ no matter what


Birflatt Boy pulls no punches. Monsieur Salut may have urged caution on SAFC’s inability so far to announce a single new acquisition, amid rumours that this or that target could end up elsewhere, but our hard-hitting contributor defends the right to aim robust criticism at the club we love …

What does it mean to be a Sunderland supporter? I’ve always regarded it as a lifelong lesson in humility, and in so many ways. After all, there’s never that much to get really excited about is there?

As the number of blogs and fan sites has propagated it’s become a lot easier to access and understand the widespread and perhaps not so widespread mix of opinion and attitude held by fans of any club, on just about anything. We all love SAFC, but have different ways of expressing that devotion, I suppose.

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Salut’s week: Jordan and Liverpool, Todd and Derby, Villa and Wigan

But no longer our future. Image: addick-tedKevin


Here is a digest of the week just gone by, as it was seen by Salut! Sunderland

The week has been dominated by one issue: the sale of Jordan Henderson to Liverpool for £13m, £16m, £19.25m, £20m, money plus Ngog … you take your pick. Can’t the clubs simply be open about fees EVERY time there is a transfer, not just when it suits them? Why are some fees trumpeted, others “undisclosed” (though usually leaked in any case)? Answers on a postcard to Mr N Quinn.

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What does the chase for Martinez say about Aston Villa?

There’s a large body of Villa supporters who are just up M Salut’s street: proper fans of a proper football club. In questioning what the interest in Roberto Martinez tells us about AVFC, our shady Birflatt Boy does not have them in mind, but the humourless, Houllier-than-thou self-delusionists who can express their allegiance only in terms of braying about what a big club they follow (and how much bigger they are than us) …

I wonder how Darren Bent is feeling now.

He left Sunderland for Aston Villa because according to him he was going to get the chance to play for a “top manager” with chances a plenty being created by their talented wide players Ashley Young and Stuart Downing. The Villa Park of mid June is looking a completely different place to the one that so bedazzled Bent in the cold January transfer window.

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Birflatt Boy: can we have Stoke City’s squad back again?

Steve Bruce has been around football long enough to realise why people are calling for his head today. Some have been questioning his survival as manager for a little while. It goes without saying that anyone who disagrees- Martin in Canada? – should contact Salut! Sunderland, which will find room for the opposing view. But our shadily cantakerous Birflatt Boy is no mood to grant a reprieve. It is hard-hitting, maybe harsh stuff and M Salut would take issue here and there. But these are parlous times for SAFC; supporters now seeing yet another the season unravel can hardly be blamed for feeling aggrieved …

How many more nails to close this coffin?

Football managers can make some horrible decisions. Selling or buying players in transfer deals that should never have seen the light of day, dropping key men in vital games, getting tactics hopelessly wrong (if they ever had any tactics at all) and usually ringing up a series of poor results.

In our case, this combination of shortcomings and blunders has led to relegation on more occasions than people of a certain age can remember without wincing.

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Birflatt Boy and players who aren’t really ours: is someone having the lend of us?

For weeks, he’s been silent, But Birflatt Boy has been provoked beyond endurance and is back on the warpath. In his sights: Steve Bruce’s over-dependence on loan signings, and one in particular. It is fair to conclude that BB was not among those casting shedloads of MOTM votes for Elmo earlier in the season (though it’s also fair to add that the Egyptian has champions among SAFC fans while some opposing supporters regard him as a real threat) …

Any hopes of European qualification that we might have had have been sunk.

And one of the many problems we have, to my mind, is that we are top heavy with loanees: Mensah, Muntari, Onouha, Welbeck, and of course our very own version of Forrest Gump, Ahmed Elmohamady, or “Elmo” for short. This one really is the runt of the loanee litter!

Five of them, and they have featured regularly this season. We still haven’t committed on anyone yet, even though a spokesman from Elmos’s club in Egypt was quoted as saying that to all intents and purposes “he is now a Sunderland player”.

But you can’t build a team with players that belong to somebody else. Especially when they are like this fellah!

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Unwise to talk about backing the other side? You bet …

Our shadowy Birflatt Boy is quick to respond to the rotten question of whether it is ever Ok to bet on your team losing …

M Salut’s article on betting against your team – click here – prompted Birflatt to think of other dilemmas that anyone could potentially face by doing nothing worse than supporting their team.

Now Birflatt wouldn’t condone anyone betting against Sunderland in any circumstances other than those where the wager is intended to cover the costs of an away trip down to London, for example, and where the bitter taste of defeat is accentuated by the trip costing half a week’s wages.

A few seasons back when Peter Crouch was playing for Liverpool, they were drawn to play Chelsea in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

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Birflatt Boy on Blatter’s gaffes: no mincing words


Monsieur Salut didn’t get as worked up as some about the World Cup venue votes. Cries of foul play? Last-minute manipulation? Prize snatched from under the expectant winner’s nose. Er, no, that was London beating Paris to the 2012 Olympics. But other issues have arisen, so stand by for some straight(ish) talking from Birflatt Boy

A couple of weeks after the ridiculous announcement that the 2022 World Cup would be held in a country that currently has three suitable stadiums, and where the temperatures during the tournament will be so high that you could cook bacon and eggs on the roof of your car, there is now furore surrounding comments from the Fifa president Sepp Blatter.

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Blackburn lunacy sums up new breed of owners

Salut! Sunderland writers are rallying to a sick man’s cause. Bill Taylor has contributed the first of what is intended to be a series of mid or middish term reviews, and will get the ball rolling tomorrow. First, our mysterious Birflatt Boy emerges once more from the shadows to offer a rant on growing managerial instability …

It’s the festive season for most of us, but the start of the silly season which was heralded by Chris Hughton’s dismissal last week has arguably been trumped by the news that Sam Allardyce has been dismissed from his job at Blackburn Rovers.

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