Will Sunderland get a first win of the season, boosting morale with any luck ahead of the trip to Villa? Or will Exeter City slip banana skins under our feet?
Fans of the Devon side, including the 300-500 expected to travel up for the game, are welcome to join in Guess the Score though it will probably be a just-for-fun comp. On the basis that no prize is only marginally worse than a coffee mug, have a go anyway.
Yesterday, Salut! Sunderland attracted more than 6,000 hits. That is an astonishing volume of traffic for a piddling little site but what a shame it takes a crisis to draw in such numbers. There was plenty of good writing to greet those arriving here for the first time, or so we like to think, but not much of it was upbeat. Can Dick Advocaat and his team at last repay the strength of support they get (er, until things go wrong)? Guess the Score in Sunderland vs Swansea City ….
Nice and early again, here’s the second Guess the Score competition, with or without a prize, of the new season …
Amid all the gloom following our latest no-show, this time at Leicester where the consensus appears to be that we got two back only because City were by then cruising, there has at least been the excitement of the Great Sixer Debate (see the comments at https://safc.blog/2015/08/au-revoir-mvila-new-signing-sees-red-in-norwich-semi-rehearsal/, which can be summarised as Dan Tilley vs The World).
The beautiful game, with all those blemishes the heaviest make-up cannot conceal, is back. There may still be a Test series going on, and loads of people are on holiday or have holidays still to take, but football won’t wait.
And that means, at Salut! Sunderland, the return of Guess the Score. Let’s have a bumper entry for the opening game versus Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.
Just to tidy things a little, let Salut! Sunderland record the last pair of Guess the Score winners of the season, with thanks as ever to our Weardale-based, Mackem-owned sponsors, Personalised Football Gifts.
Mike Thomas, a Chelsea supporter, correctly predicted the Blues would exploit tired legs, burst our survival bubble and win 3-1.
“I wish I had been blessed with enough confidence having made my prediction to back it up with a few quid at Corals'” he writes, as if the Chelsea mug is not reward enough. “Please pass on my thanks to Sunderland Supporters who attended – I thought they showed class throughout.”
The bullish tone of the headline should offend no one.
Monsieur Salut is notoriously unyielding on final games of the season where nothing is any longer at stake. They are, simply, more important than any England game, even ones that dictate qualification or otherwise for the Euros or World Cup. That goes for our reserves, too.
A word about the poll: now that we have had to lose Villa and Leicester, it’s down to three so …
Not for the first time, but we hope for the last this season, we approach a game of momentous importance.
As every schoolboy ought to know, a win on Saturday for Sunderland and a defeat or draw for Hull City would ensure our survival. After a season in which we have truly earned very little, we at last deserve the result we need on the strength of recent performances.
Who approached Tuesday night thinking “we can rely on old Brucie to mess it up and do us a favour?”,Elmo will have the sort of stinker he played for us and Jordan Henderson will lead Liverpool to victory for our sake as well as theirs?
I thought my phone screen was frozen when it kept saying 1-0 every time I looked. Bruce had got his result, Elmo providing the cross from which Dawson scored the winner, and Hendo could do no more than huff and puff with the rest of a misfiring Liverpool side.
So the night ended with Hull a lot closer to safety than us. Heaven knows what Leicester will do to Chelsea tonight to make us even glummer.
Despite the air of resignation that has drifted into the tone of comments posted by Salut! Sunderland perceptive band of readers, the overwhelming majority of us fervently want one outcome to the season, safety for SAFC.
Actually, quite a few would quite like another outcome, too, the relegation of Newcastle United, but the 35 points Toon won before they decided winning and drawing are not really much fun will probably be enough assuming they don’t get hammered in each remaining game and pick up another point or two.