For Paul Summerside, the time is right to wish a happy 2018 to all at Salut! Sunderland and its Facebook page – and to reflect on “Groundhog Day. 2017 revisited”. It’s hardly an open letter to Ellis Short, more a quick reminder that if we set aside changes in personnel, what is needed now if Sunderland are to avoid a humiliating drop into the third tier is pretty much what was needed a year ago …
Malcolm Dawson writes…….I made a decision at the end of last season that going to watch Sunderland was becoming too painful. Physically painful because of the arthritis in my knees and the back pain I was experiencing on the walk from car to ground and back. Psychologically painful because of the poor football on show, constant disappointment not only at results but at poor performances and a lack of entertainment. Economically painful in the knowledge that, with two and a half years to go before I get my state pension, the cost of a season card represented five per cent of my annual income and I could think of better ways to spend my time and money. But most of all (and I know there are some, though a dwindling number, who disagree with me) I could see the club going only one way under the current ownership. I decided enough was enough. Call me disloyal, call me a fair weather supporter but I felt I had suffered enough over the years and there comes a time when cold logic finally overtakes blind emotion.
But with a new healthy eating regime and a substantial weight loss, the walking has become easier and with Pete Sixsmith otherwise engaged over advent, I got along to the three home games prior to Christmas. Reading was a shambles, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I had enjoyed the Fulham and Birmingham games. So much so that despite the despondent reports from those who had been to Bramall Lane, those two games plus the win at Forest and the fact there were no Northern League games on New Year’s Day had got me thinking that maybe I should go to see the Coleman revival continue against Barnsley. But I am nothing if not stubborn and decided around midday, that I would settle for Barnes and Benno, the Guardian crossword and a snooze on the sofa. Sounds like I made a good decision.
Pete was back in his usual seat but if this most despondent of reports is anything to go by, he would rather have stayed home listening to Nicholas Parsons and Paul Merton recalling the 50 years of Just a Minute as he recaps yesterday’s experience without hesitation, deviation but for those of you who read his report of the Sheffield United game more than a little repetition …
BARNSLEY
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?
Until as recently as the weekend, no one could seriously fault the bookies’ belief that Sunderland were relegation probabilities. Now, Chris Coleman has made the sort of start after replcaing Simon Grayson as manager to encourage measured hope that a swift ascent of the Championship table is more likely. Here, William Sundin, a media production graduate from Sunderland University, looks back at the short but successful stint of one of Coleman’s predecessors Sam Allardyce, who has now steered Everton to ninth top, and wonders when the two clubs may meet again in the top flight …
Everton recently made the wise decision to bring in Sam Allardyce to save their season after they got off to a dismal start under Ronald Koeman.
Big Sam already has the team climbing back up the table and it wouldn’t be out of the question to suggest that having taken over a team staring relegation in the face, he could even steer them towards a top six finish.
Malcolm Dawson writes…………..Santa called early this year and on his way to bring joy and happiness to the children of …
Malcolm Dawson writes………with Peter Sixsmith huffing and puffing his way around Weardale at this time of year, telling anyone who’ll …
Monsieur Salut writes: had I been able to make it – up for me, from London – for Chris Coleman’s first game in charge, I would have met up with not only Peter Sixsmith but Rob Hutchison and his daughter Olivia, all three familiar figures around these parts. My apologies for absence reached the Hutchisons as they – also heading north from exile – drove towards Birmingham.
At one down, as the second half started, Rob thought there was so little between the sides that Sunderland could go on and win if only they could first equalise. Cue a second Villa goal.
Here, then, is one of those Hutch specialities, Rob’s one-word man-by-man verdict (he described the whole experience as ‘drab, drab, drab; oh, it was so drab’ and will one day explain why Gibson was ‘crablike’) …
Pete Sixsmith saw Chris Coleman’s managership start in painfully familiar fashion, yet another bright start undone by yet another piece of sloppy defending. The upshot: the simplest of conceded goals for Villa’s Adomah, albeit after the ref arguably ignored a foul on Matthews that started the move. Ten minutes gone, one down. Had Robbin Ruiter, so fortunate to keep his place after handing Millwall two early Christmas presents on Saturday, even seen the ball up to then? ‘Goalkeeper suspect again,’ muttered Sixer. Gary Bennett praised the shape – 4-1-4-1 – and the buildup but was worried about the final pass, the final shot and the failure to cover at the back. Sixer bemoaned our lack of physicality.
All the above was written before half time. The second had barely begun before another Villa -mah (Onomah this time) made it two, his shot massively deflected by Browning. There seemed no way back. Lax defending, lack of finesse and a spot of misfortune: Coleman was perhaps seeing our season so far encapsulated in one more losing game.
Then he saw how important Lewis Grabban is to our modest hopes when the striker on loan from Bournemouth snatched one back. We prayed for that flash of skill or touch of luck that might save the game. It didn’t come.
Sixer saw glimmers of hope. Come back for his considered view but read on for his instant seven-word verdict …
Beyond blind faith, a commodity in large if diminishing supply among Sunderland supporters, perhaps the main source of hope for an unexpected victory at Villa Park is the power of new manager bounce.
But what a fillip it would give to the demoralised faithful to be able, for only the second time this season, to celebrate the final whistle rather than be left ruing missed chances and the inability to defend or even obtain a lead.
Even a draw at promotion-chasing Villa, denying bragging rights to Steve Bruce, as beastly a bête noire to Sunderland fans as they come, would be encouraging and – with a visit to lowly Burton Albion next up – give new complexion to match previews for this weekend.
In 1991 Chionofuji Mitsugo announced his retirement as a Sumo wrestler.
He had had more than 1,000 wins, which included the longest run of consecutive wins in the post-war era (54) and been a honbasho champion 31 times (there are six honbasho, or tournaments, per year). He was the 54th person to become a Yokozuna – the top rank – in Sumo wrestling’s modern history, and the greatest sumo wrestler of his generation.
Yet he claimed he had lost his fighting spirit, and in a solemn ceremony his topknot was cut off and his career as a fighter was over, for there is no coming back when a Sumo wrestler’s topknot is cut off.