Monsieur Salut writes: as perhaps the least surprising outcome of the worst Sunderland season since, well, the last worst Sunderland season (think McCarthy), David Moyes is no longer our manager.
Some will say he should never have been our manager. I am honest enough to say I welcomed his appointment, much as I would have wished Big Sam had stayed.
STOP PRESS – Lars submitted this piece well before the season end, before the Arsenal game in fact. It has been sitting in the draft folder for a week and would you know it – within minutes of it going live Moyes resigns. MD
Malcolm Dawson, deputy editor, writes: at the end of a season that will linger long in the memory as one we would wish to forget, Salut! Sunderland approached both its regular and occasional contributors for their thoughts. Don’t be fooled by the name – Lars Knutsen is Mackem through and through and even though his work took him away from his Boldon roots to Cambridge via Scandinavia and the USA. he retains his love of SAFC. Working as he did in the pharmaceutical sector you’d think he might have driven his troops into researching a cure for the compulsion to follow a club that has been a long term underachiever but no – like the rest of us he is stuck with his lot.
You can read more of Lars’s contributions here
Monsieur Salut adds: a series of painful steroid injections to a dodgy knee reminded me today it was time to launch this series of end-of-season reviews. With thanks to Malcolm for preparing Lars’s contribution for publication, let me make it clear the series is open to all Salut! Sunderland readers who have time and inclination to offer their own reviews of a season. Just let us know – leave a message below or use the contact link you’ll find somewhere on the home page
Owing to a slight technical hitch – the editor’s incompetence in overlooking that there was a draft and incomplete headline …
A dire end to a dire season. In the end Chelsea strolled past us.
David Moyes says in his post-match missive that we tried to make the gap as small as possible. Did we succeed? Probably, because it’s a massive gap between us and even 16th place.
What else does he have to say? Find out for yourself, here’s what he wrote:
Malcolm Dawson writes: a bit like Jermain Defoe, Salut! Sunderland‘s own Pete Sixsmith is much in demand. Not only is …
John McCormick writes:
I wouldn’t have bothered putting Januzaj on, wouldn’t even have bothered telling him to turn up.
But other than that, I can’t really disagree with David Moyes today, given that Arsenal really did need to win to give themselves a top four chance, and they really did have to make an effort to get that win.
Malcolm Dawson writes: Just over twelve months ago we celebrated another great escape. But it wasn’t just avoiding relegation that …
There really is little more to say. The best moments of the afternoon were 1) Rob Mason’s interview with Nick Barnes about being ‘let go’ by the club from his exemplary editing of the club programme (another rotten SAFC decision, but what a noble interview without a trace of bittneress) and 2) the sight of Bradley Lowery being carried on to the pitch beforehand by Jermain Defoe. For the rest, David Moyes got it right a couple of days ago – he and the players should have been hanging their heads in shame. Here are his usual post-match thoughts, …
Monsieur Salut writes: hard for us, hard for him to make too much of a song and dance out of a win that carries no meaning beyond some hope of not finishing bottom. But here, all the same, is what David Moyes had to say after we beat Hull City 2-0, a deserved victory though it took a great display by Jordan Pickford to keep a clean sheet …
Ian Wilson* is the warm-hearted Hull City fan who recently chipped in with £50 for the Bradley Lowery fund. He turns out to be exiled in Sri Lanka and to have spent a lot of time at Roker Park while working in the North East. Ian expresses obviously sincere sympathy on our relegation, muses over the players he’d take from our squad, offers cautious optimism on Hull’s survival prospects – and says David Moyes is not the man to revive Sunderland’s fortunes …
