As the laborious and uninspiringly low-profile search for a new manager goes on, Sunderland return to Championship action with only a month left of the year since we last won at home.
Can we finally get three points at the Stadium of Light without needing three games to do so? Will Ellis Short accuse the media of making it up if we don’t?
Just when you thought being bottom of the Championship made you safe from such things, along comes a website that actually calls itself DirtyPlayers.co.uk and calls into question our fond collective belief that in Lee Cattermole, Sunderland have the most cultured, gentlest and fairest of players without thought of tripping, crunching, nudging or pulling back opponents.
How long before people will be betting again on our Premier League games?
Like shopping, dating and trying to deal with public services, betting has increasingly become an online activity. Salut! Sunderland‘s Monsieur Salut naturally advises against anything other than safe, affordable flutters but has been known to dabble a little in his time – pools, first to score, match scorelines and so on – and would very much have liked to have been that punter who stuck money on Leicester for the Premier League at 5,000-to-one.
Here, someone in the know explains how it works – but would he recommend a bet on Sunderland for promotion? …
It might be an exaggeration to say that pouring over the misfortunes of Sunderland AFC, and its sod-the-press-I-only-do-tame-inhouse-interviews owner, has become an international sport. But it’s certainly keeping the media busy.
BBC Radio Newcastle’s Total Sport programme had the benefit of our Pete Sixsmith’s wisdom last night. He spoke gloomily about our immediate prospects – he fears another relegation – and holds David Moyes to no small extent culpable for our present malaise.
They do not come much easier than Leo Bonatini’s first goal of the season, a mighty Sunderland-style defensive blunder by the Boro defender Daniel Ayala setting up his chance, well as he then took it.
But the Wolves striker has been on fire since, his total of nine including five goals in October and that is what made him the PFA Bristol Street Motors Championship player of the month as voted by fans.
Sunderland’s Lewis Grabban was one of five other nominees but came last in the shortlist with just three per cent of the votes cast. In fact, Bonatini polled more than all five rivals combined.
But hang on a second. Bonatini plays for the club currently topping the table and we all know which position Sunderland occupy. If we think about it for, say, half a second, we can probably hazard a guess as to which of them enjoys the more creative, thoughtful and effective service. So Grabban’s eight goals can be seen as an achievement no less than creditable than Bonatini’s nine – and he, too, scored five of them in October.
There has been a lot of anger and a fair amount of gallows humour among West Ham fans at the choice of our old friend David Moyes to replace the sacked Slaven Bilic as manager.
As far as Monsieur Salut can tell, Moyes has not yet announced that the Hammers are in a relegation scrap. Nor has he said the players he needs in January won’t be available to him. Why, he hasn’t even told anyone from LBC Radio she deserves a slap or apologised – yet – for being self-defeatingly dour, honest and ever-so-sure of his ability.
And with supreme faith in their new man, the West Ham board has made the appointment for all of six months, ie to the end of the season. That’s the stuff!
Earlier this week, the West Ham United fan site asked for reciprocal links with Salut! Sunderland, now established. I invited my contact there, Ade, to share anything his site did by way of covering Moyes. And here it is, with some mischief-making along the way drawn from other sources …
It feels almost surreal. But when you check that sliding green link you see at the foot of each page of Salut! Sunderland, the PFA player-of-the-month awards really do have a Sunderland player among the nominees.
Maybe it is a step too far to contemplate an award for someone playing for a crisis club rooted at the foot of the Championship table.
Time is running out for Sunderland. The latest defeat, coupled with wins for Burton and Bolton, exposes the club horribly at the foot of the table. Time is also running out for Pete Sixsmith‘s attendance at SAFC games – he will soon be pulling on Santa clothes to entertain the children of the North East – and he’s delighted he won’t have to sit through more of this dross.
Sixer’s Sunday took him to the Riverside stadium, more in hope than anticipation he said at Facebook as the Durham SAFCSA branch bus approached Teesside. Short as the journey may have been, those making it were not watching a derby according to Sixer (“of course not, it’s in Yorkshire”) and Bill Harris (who had the bright idea of a Salut! Sunderland poll on the issue). The readers have decided in their favour by a whopping majority* and the poll is now as closed as are Sixer’s ears to excuses for the shambles he witnessed.
Here is his damning report on another wasted afternoon …
Andy Falconer: wondering whether we should all give up and follow South Shields
Who are You? may be slowly turning into a family affair. After Wrinkly Pete roped in his Bristol City-supporting nephew, Monsieur Salut does the same with the Boro-supporting part of the Randall clan (my sister has lived in Middlesbrough almost all her adult life). Andy Falconer* grew up close to Ayresome Park. He is bang up to date with comments on Simon Grayson’s saacking – risky for Sunderland, he believes – and expresses a liking for McGeady, Watmore and Catts while naturally thinking no Sunderland player could truly enhance the Boro squad. He sees a bitter scrap at the bottom for us, promotion via the playoffs for his lot …
Just as Sunderland supporters were given two reasons to smile – the dismissal of Simon Grayson demanded by so many and a sudden leap to the heady heights of third bottom – a quick look at the Championship results and table showed the other sick man of North-eastern football suddenly feeling a lot more perky.
Boro’s 3-1 win at Hull City took them to just outside the playoffs and reminds us of the scale of Sunday’s task with or more likely without a new manager.
