It’s a frantic time for Salut! Sunderland over Christmas, with games on Saturday and again on Boxing Day followed by the visit to Forest next Saturday.
Everything that should appear on these pages will appear, so please keep coming back and checking for updates.
Christmas greetings to all Salut! Sunderland readers, contributors and editors. You’ll see the seasonal compliments more fully when you pop into the site on Christmas morning.
Malcolm Dawson was back in the East stand seat of Pete Sixsmith, absent again on Santa duties, to see Sunderland drop back into the bottom three after a disappointing draw against the bottom club, with Bolton and Burton both winning. The instant verdict is therefore his, as will be the substitute Sixer’s Soapbox in due course. Gary Bennett, analysing with Nick Barnes, thought it a poor game where poor defending again cost us a goal. He questioned the decision-making by, in particular, Lewis Grabban in chances before and after his (Grabban’s) equaliser and cited a glaring creativity gap that perhaps Aiden McGeady might have filled …
Chris Coleman. Source: Steindy , 10 November 2016 (UTC) via Wikipedia
No sooner had we said the bookies may have to think again about Sunderland as relegation fodder than we begin to see signs that the odds might soon start lengthening. One win is not enough to get pulses racing too fast but there’s no denying the massive fillip that would result if we could add a win against Birmingham City to Chris Coleman’s highly encouraging start as manager. Daniel Webb, who knows about such matters, analyses the prospects …
After claims that the club was “rotten to the core”, Sunderland were all of the best bookmakers’ favourites for a second relegation in a row – up until recently.
However, a lot of us got our hopes up when Chris Coleman was appointed manager. After all, who better to take charge of a struggling team than the man who led Wales – WALES! – to the semi-finals of Euro 2016? If anyone can help us, it’s Coleman, right?
Yet while our results have improved, we’re not out of the woods yet. So can the Welshman actually pull us out of trouble, or are we just fooling ourselves?
Abigail Emmerson is a special girl. How many other nine-year-olds – OK, only a few days to go before she hits 10 – willingly turn up to watch SAFC home and often enough away, make videos about it and write for Salut! Sunderland? You met her here after the Burton away win, she was mentioned again in Monsieur Salut’s account of his winning trip to the SoL and now she offers her own thoughts on that breakthrough …
I can’t believe I have eventually seen my first home win. I thought it would never happen. But then again I picked the worst time to start watching them last season. We had been doing OK before I turned up, but then to go a year without a win? Wow.
Niall and SuperKev: click the image for more details
It’s Christmas and Little Drummer Boy is one of those songs you cannot always escape from.
But into the stocking of a Salut! Sunderland stalwart who signs his comments here as Drummer will go a t-shirt depicting two heroic figures of Sunderland’s not-so-distant past, Niall Quinn and SuperKev.
Wear Niall and SuperKev with pride
The only other clue I shall give is that he wants it in large. It is for Drummer to reveal his true identity if he wishes.
And now on to even more serious matters. Sunderland vs Birmingham City and your chance to get the Niall/SKP print on your wall or the t-shirt on your chest.
Half time, with Barnes and Benno at the commentary box up in the West stand gods
Monsieur Salut, only an occasional presence at games, offers some thoughts on a satisfying first pilgrimage to the Stadium of Light since, well, we were a Premier League side ….
With apologies to all the people I would also have liked to meet but couldn’t, let it be recorded that even a punishing drive south in rotten conditions failed to dampen the spirits after a weekend back in the north, capped by that heartening first home win for a horrifying period, just one day short of a year.
“I must have aged 10 years in the last five minutes,” someone said in the concourse as people left the Stadium of Light with rare smiles on their faces.
One of the most exuberant of those smiles belonged to nine-year-old Abigail Emmerson, who recently wrote a charming account of her early experiences as a Sunderland supporter.
Russ:’no one touches Danny Murphy as a Fulham star of recent years’
Monsieur Salut writes: I had a dream; Sunderland beat Fulham 2-0 before my eyes to end the home hoodoo. A likely outcome? Russ Goldman*, a USA-based Fulham fan who hosts the Cottage Talk podcast (as well as a New England Patriots podcast, disagrees as you would expect. He is not too downbeat about his club’s failure to live up to expectations so far and believes they will end up in the top six. He also expects them to beat us on Saturday …
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It is fair to say Lee Cattermole has long divided opinion among Sunderland supporters. Perhaps all or certainly most of us appreciate the commitment, that desire to win or at least avoid defeat, that epitomises his game. We may even, occasionally, respect his willingness to ‘take one for the team’. And opposing fans often say he’s someone they’d like in their teams.
But is he now being caught out once too often, and too expensively, even at Championship level? Is he, quite bluntly, a liabilty? Or do we take a kinder view and say ‘let’s not be swayed by one red card, the first in four years, there’s plenty more he has to offer Sunderland’? …. Chris Weatherspoon*, a fan and a seasoned writer on things SAFC, has a view and it’s a harsh one.
There is a Salut! Sunderland poll on this. Scroll down to vote …
Niall and SuperKev: click the image for more details
Out with the mugs and in with the print or t-shirt. For the next two games, Guess the Score has the ear of those excellent people at Art of Football, occasional sponsors of Salut! Sunderland competitions and run by Nottingham Forest fans among whom we found a Who are You? candidate earlier in the season.
So guess the score in Sunderland vs Fulham, be first with the right scoreline and you will win one of the two Niall Quinn/Kevin Phillips items shown: a fine print or a t-shirt depicting two heroes of Sunderland’s relatively recent past.
Bob Chapman is always a great stand-in for Pete Sixsmith, a home and away stalwart who lives so far south that even a home game means a trek. Wolbverhampton wasn’t next door but neither was it anything like as far. And Bob was rewarded by a display of outstanding commitment (and a decent day out with pals) …
