Hull City

Wrinkly Pete’s Crystal Ball: it may be causing hallucinations

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Peter Lynn, aka Wrinkly Pete

Peter Lynn, also known as Wrinkly Pete, has an an imaginary crystal ball that enables him to predict the outcome of each game and check how it affects his once-firm belief that Sunderland would survive on 37 points. That tally is now pretty much impossible but Pete still sees us finishing on 35. Probably not enough and there’s also a health warning: some of those predictions look a little optimistic – as well as pre-supposing that Hull and Swansea take no more than five and seven points respectively from their remaining games…

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Burnley Guess the Score and a Hull fan aids Bradley Lowery’s fund

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Jake: ‘is there any point in urging a special performance?’

Monsieur Salut writes: I had an itch to get this week’s Guess the Score out there, but an e-mail from a Hull City supporter exiled in Sri Lanka removed any doubt. You may recall that last week, despite Sunderland’s inactivity, we offered a mini-edition of Nick Barnes’s splendid Matchbook for the first to post correct scorelines in two games of interest to but not involving SAFC, partly because some unexpected advertising enabled us to do so and partly because the publishers, Tales from Red and Whites are paying £5 into the Bradley Lowery fund for each copy bought. So there were two winners – a Hull supporter and Bradley. Read on …

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Sunderland and Hull, Middlesbrough or Palace? Swansea or Bournemouth? Not WBA, as Leicester take off

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John McCormick
John McCormick: We’re  bottom and there’s now a gap

When I last reported in with the Salut Sunderland relegation watch we had had some recent wins but were still in the relegation zone, along with Swansea and Hull. (Swansea weren’t one of the clubs chosen in our start-of season poll but I included them in December on the grounds that some people did vote for “another club” and they  had begun to fit that bill after a decline).

That was only a month ago, just after the transfer window closed, since when new signings have had time to settle and new managers to generate – but maybe not sustain – a bounce. With a cup  weekend giving most of them a breather we have another chance to review  the situation.

But before I do, I have to congratulate West Bromwich Albion, who passed through our metaphorical barrier with ease. Would that we could reach such heights.

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Guess someone else’s score, help Bradley Lowery: Hull-Swansea, Bournemouth-West Ham anyone?

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Win the prize: help Bradley Lowery

 

Monsieur Salut writes: please see John McCormick’s fine piece on Barca 6-1 PSG. My view from France? The PSG collapse was lead item on the French lunchtime news, which I found shocking given there is also a presidential election campaign and a gruesome family murder in Brittany. I am quite pleased about PSG’s heavy defeat but only because I regard them as a fairly loathsome club and don’t (yet? really?) feel the same way about Barcelona. And now for some Salut! Sunderland housekeeping …

It boils down to an invitation to Guess the Score – in the absence of a Sunderland game – in either of the two matches affecting us, Bournemouth vs West Ham and Hull vs Swansea. Be first to be right in either case and you can either have the mini-version of Nick Barnes’s Matchbook, knowing a fiver will go to the Bradley Lowery fund, or – if, say, you support one of the teams involved – a mug reflecting your allegiance … in the latter case, Salut! Sunderland would pay the fiver into Bradley’s fund

Goes without saying that two first-to-be-correct scorelines = two prizes. You must have a UK delivery address.

14 Bournemouth P27 GD-15 Pts27
15 Leicester 27 -15 27
16 Swansea 27 -24 27
17 Crystal Palace 27 -11 25
18 Middlesbrough 27 -11 22
19 Hull 27 -29 21
20 Sunderland 27 -26 19

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The blessed and the damned: ‘SAFC, Crystal Palace and one other for drop’

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The Observer asked fans of the bottom seven clubs to say who would go down and who would survive. Perhaps to no great surprise, all seven – our own Pete Sixsmith included – said Sunderland would drop. Pete did allow for another possible great escape but without much confidence. Everyone apart from the Palace supporter thought they were doomed, too, with the votes for the third team divided between Hull, Boro and Leicester .

Here are Pete’s responses. (You can see the article in full at this link.)

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Was Crystal Palace another false dawn or proof Moyes can work miracles?

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Jermain Defoe warms up before a Premier League defeat at West Ham Image: Egghead06

 

After the great win at Crystal Palace was followed by a crushing home defeat to Southampton, Sunderland fans typically divided into two familiar camps: loyal belief in another great escape and, inevitably, grim resignation. Alex McMahon tries to see positives despite an underwhelming transfer window and the failure to build on the Palace result …

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Sunderland, Palace, Hull, Swansea, Middlesbrough and Leicester – pick any three

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John McCormick
John McCormick: We’re  bottom but the gap’s closing

When I last reported in with the Salut Sunderland relegation watch we had had some recent wins but were still in the relegation zone, along with Swansea and Hull. (Swansea weren’t one of the clubs chosen in our start-of season poll but I included them in December on the grounds that some people did vote for “another club” and they  had begun to fit that bill after a decline).

That was just before Christmas, not long before the transfer window opened, and just around the time struggling clubs might decide a new manager might help them take advantage of it. Now, with all that business done (free agents notwithstanding) it’s time to take stock before we head to the end of season crunch games, six pointers and desperation sackings that define the struggle for 39 points.

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Pop goes Wrinkly Pete again, charting SAFC’s escape even without beating Stoke

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Peter Lynn, aka Wrinkly Pete

Peter Lynn dips back into his collection of dodgy old hits for inspiration as he does some back-of-envelope calculations on what David Moyes needs from the second half of the season if Sunderland are yet again to avoid the drop. He even allows for the unthinkable, losing at home to Stoke on Saturday , as he steers us to safety…

 

 

I’m sending out an SOS, ‘cos I’m in so much distress

So sang Edwin Starr on his hit Stop Her On Sight and I am hoping that I will not feel the same as I begin my four-hour drive home, post match on Saturday.

If David Moyes, pre-match on Saturday, can get his team to realise that this is War, another of Starr’s hits, then we might get a win and make a further small (?) step towards safety.

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Sunderland vs Leicester City Guess the Score. Beatable champions

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See these (above) and other Art of Football prints by clicking anywhere on this caption


Two good wins followed by a logical defeat at Anfield after we’d held out well for 75 minutes and even had two good chances to go ahead.

The positive way to look at our last three games is not to think in terms of two-steps-forward-one-back but to see each of them offering signs that we can break free of the bottom three.

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Club of 92: Manchester rambler acclaims Pickford, Defoe, Victor and the SoL

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Shaun
Shaun Best: ‘out of the dark’

NB: what follows is a light-hearted read on what is otherwise a grim day for football. Salut! Sunderland declares its sympathy for all those killed in or bereaved by the Colombian air crash, whose victims include players and officials of the Brazilian top flight club ACF, or Associação Chapecoense de Futebol. As a Manchester Utd supporter, our guest writer will be well aware of his own club’s association with aviation disaster.

There are train spotters, bird twitchers and philatelists. And then there’s the Club of 72, whose members collect football stadiums, not to dismantle and take home but to visit. As Shaun Best – already familiar with the 72 Football League grounds – prepared to tick Sunderland off his to-do list, he was wondering who would be the manager by the time got there. We were winless and seemingly broken beyond repair. Then a funny thing happened: we won a game. Let Shaun take up the story of his newest collector’s item, the Stadium of Light …

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