John McCormick writes: Watching on a small screen with a bad feed, I thought Chelsea were the better team – quicker, stronger, more together, and they kept the ball better than us. Having said that, a totally needless og from Phil Bardlsey was the difference in the scoreline and we were miles, miles better than both Crystal Palace and West Ham were yesterday.
Pete Sixsmith takes a calculated gamble that he won’t be the most popular lad down Fulham Broadway once his thoughts on Chelsea have been digested. Not wanting any bother at his west London badminton club, Monsieur Salut points out that some of his best friends etc etc etc …
John McCormick writes: I remember us beating Chelsea many years ago, when the world was young and the Busty wasn’t bust. More recently we finished just below them as Peter Reid gave our dreams substance. Then they moved into a different financial league and never have the twain looked like meeting again.
So, we face two London sides – in quick succession – that could be said to personify strutting arrogance. Grant James did a great set of replies here last season and didn’t mind a bit bringing his thoughts up to date ahead of the first of those formidable games, home to Chelsea ….
If you want confirmation of the popular view that Cabral’s exclusion from PDC, Bally and now Poyet teams is a scandal, this is not the place to be. Pete Sixsmith caught him, and Modibo Diakité, in an Under 21s game at the Stadium of Light on Saturday. And body language told him they must be ruing the day their agents mentioned the word Sunderland …
Jamie Redknapp’s bits-and-bobs column in the Mail made depressing reading. ‘Will they (Newcastle) send Sunderland closer to the drop next week? … At Chelsea, PDC went for Wickham to lead the line – a young player I like – and he played well. But I worry where their goals are coming from.’ But there is hope. Robert Chapman is a home-and-away stalwart and left Stamford Bridge feeling a little perkier. Let’s hope his assessment proves truer than Young Redknapp’s and that PDC’s powers of motivation, and his own home tutorial skills with Young David, prevail …
This is where Pete Sixsmith records his instant verdict, in seven words, on each Sunderland game. The result went to script but PDC can take heart from a performance that was far better than most this year. Two wicked deflections cost us; we can but hope that the decent display fires the team for the coming tasks, starting at Newcastle United. This is a quick, emergency and no-frills posting of Sevens and Bob Chapman is the supersub in Sixer’s absence from the game
The new podcast: Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/wise-men-say
An agenda is written every week prior to the recording of the Salut! Sunderland podcast, writes Stephen Goldsmith. It’s not a rigid structure, just something to keep the podcast on track and make it sound like it has some sort of direction to it.
There have been a few problems in acquiring the desired guests since the podcast’s launch around five weeks ago.
Considering the infancy of the project, having former players, football journalists and fanzine editors get involved makes it all feel worthwhile. We set the standards high in that aspect and are happy with the early results; next season could see things elevated even further given the chance.
I have had fun all week with the disparate band of people in various lands who post comments to the club-by-club part of the ESPN website – http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/sunderland/id/1359?cc=5739.
Paolo Di Canio takes Sunderland to Stamford Bridge on Sunday for a routine outing against the side that has just turfed Man Utd out of the FA Cup and has top four written all over it. Or will the fear of PDC make them all play as they did at Southampton? A baptism of fire for Di Canio, maybe, but no members of his squad will be under any illusions about how passionate to win he will expect them to be once kickoff comes. Del Oldfied* is a London cabbie and Chelsea nut. He thinks PDC’s appointment is risky but already thought we had “enough quality`” to stay up. That said, Del also expects us to face a confident bunch of Blues …