Time for another quick look back at the week.
A full stadium, a great build-up and then the damp squib that was, for Sunderland supporters, SAFC v Liverpool.
Liverpool
When Liverpool rained heavily on the Ellis Short parade
Oh dear. Safc.com was proud as punch to announce that Ellis Short was about to give one of his rare interviews.
And the day we lost 2-0 in utterly deflating fashion at home to Liverpool was the day he chose to deliver a message some Sunderland supporters would now regard as ridiculously upbeat.
“We will be doing everything we can to win those games,” he said of the four remaining home ties after Liverpool: WBA, Bolton, Wigan and Fulham, stressing the need for big crowds. “We are not looking behind us any more at what can happen at the end of the season. We are looking ahead at how far up the table we can climb.”
He also spoke of the match he was about to watch.
It was to be played in front of a near-full house but broadcast internationally {and legally) so that the world would see a packed stadium with passionate supporters. We know what happened next: a damp squib, our fans reduced to silence and early exit when a bright start evaporated, with a little help from abysmal match officials, into abject surrender.
Liverpool Soapbox: Reds on the up but benefit from ref’s ineptitude
Liverpool fans are fuming at the suggestion that blameless young Spearing had anything other than the Corinthian spirit in mind when he tumbled in the box some distance from where his path and Mensah’s crossed. They’ll take some comfort from Pete Sixsmith‘s even-handed analysis, balancing bitter disappointment at a worrying Sunderland performance with some admiration for the Reds’ progress under Dalglish …
Three things to say about yesterday’s game: Liverpool were the better side, the penalty decision was a disgrace and we are beginning to get a wee bit worried.
First things first, Liverpool deserved their win. They defended well with Skrtl and Agger outstanding and Suarez always looked a danger. His goal was very well taken and he caused problems for our defenders, Mensah in particular. In midfield they looked tight and well organized with Kuyt having his usual solid game. He’s a good player – reliable and sound.
Forget Spearing’s dive for Liverpool: Lyon’s cheat in a different class
Image: Ronnie Macdonald (Lovren, right, practises ballet skills in Lyon v Celtic, Emirates Cup)
No complaints about today’s result. Whatever justified grievances we have with the match officials, Liverpool deserved to win and we deserved nowt. And, in the latest from our French Fancies series about football on the other side of the Channel, we identify a much nastier example of the ugly face of football …
In one way Jay Spearing is not a cheat at all. But then nor, in one way, was Gary McAllister. Both were indeed fouled by Sunderland players, so falling over was not an impossible consequence.
Their status as cheats is judged on what happened next. The fouls occurred outside the penalty area and the fouled players proceeded to float though the air (McAllister) or run and plunge (Spearing) to land well inside the box.
Steve Bruce on the surrender to Liverpool: we deserved nothing
One or two visitors to Salut! Sunderland have spectacularly misunderstood a headline saying “don’t blame” the officials as meaning do blame them. They also think there was some suggestion here that a strong team was beaten by an ordinary one.
All we’ve said is that we looked to be fielding a strong starting 11. And they played well enough until the penalty but never threatened Liverpool’s goal. I heard one partisan (ie pro-SAFC) commentator say Pepe Reina could have settled down for a cup of tea and sandwich, so underemployed was he. Liverpool looked poor, too, but were the better side. All acknowledged in the reports so far. So what did Steve Bruce, who must bear some responsibility for the awful excuse for football we presented from penalty onwards, make of it? He’s been writing to Monsieur Salut again …
SAFC 0 Liverpool 2: don’t blame Liverpool’s Friend
We must be consistent. We have mocked, repeatedly, referees who try to “make up” in a second half for an outrageously wrong decision in the first.
So let us hear it for Kevin Friend’s steely resolve.
Sixer’s Sevens: SAFC 0 Liverpool 2
It starts with defeat to Liverpool, with Kevin Friend (referee) and his friend Billy Smallwood (linesman) intent on pleasing their …
Who are You? Mick Quinn’s divided Liverpool and Newcastle loyalties
Salut! Sunderland casts its net far and wide in search of interesting candidates for the Who are You? series. For today’s return to Premier action – Sunderland v Liverpool – we found Mick Quinn, who grew up on the Kop but had to play his football at downtrodden stadiums in places like Newcastle and Portsmouth. Mick has fully recovered from such adversity and now works for TalkSport, covering football and horseracing. And he was a cracking interviewee. The full Q&A can be seen here but , for those in a hurry who missed it first time round, one or two extracts follow …
Salut! Sunderland In the end, was it right – for Liverpool too – that Torres went?
Yes, I think so. Don’t get me wrong: he is a top quality striker who on the top of his game is the best in the world for me. Just look at some of the goals he has scored. And I have never changed my opinion on that. But for one reason or another, and there were those three ops in 18 months, he was sulking like a big kid because he felt he’d been promised quite a bit by Hodgson on the players he’d bring in but then didn’t. But we’ve brought in two quality strikers so that is a good bit of business in the end.
Salut!’s week: Liverpool’s lost mojo, winning lasses and scattered Mackems
Image: Mrs Logic
Last weekend was another one without football, at any rate for Sunderland supporters. But there have still been plenty of talking points, plus the build-up to tomorrow’s Sunderland v Liverpool match, to keep Salut! Sunderland busy, as the latest digest of the past week shows …
The Lads had a break but the Lasses had work to do. Sunderland Women’s Football Club produced a strong second-half performance to beat Lincoln City, from the Super League to which Sunderland were disgracefully denied entry, for a place if the FA Women’s Cup quarter-finals.
They face an even tougher task in the 6th round a week tomorrow – Arsenal at home – and possibly a tougher one still in persuading the official SAFC website to take a blind bit of notice in their admirable achievements. Perhaps someone can explain why safc.com studiously ignores the girls, or direct us to some well-hidden corner of the site, overlooked by me, where their cup and Premier League progress is properly recorded.
For those who missed our week, or parts of it, here is a quick guide to what we’ve been doing. If anything takes your fancy, click on the sub-heading to see the item in full:
Soapbox: why I stopped loving Liverpool
Pete Sixsmith, one the of the best things happen to football writing in a generation (or six), reaches – I won’t say celebrates – a milestone birthday today. No prizes are being offered for guessing which one. He marks the occasion with some heartfelt words on how the magneticism of Liverpool, for him, rubbed off …
Growing up in the 60s, there was only one place boys wanted to be and that was on the banks of the Mersey.
As a regular reader of NME, Record Mirror, Melody Maker and Disc & Music Echo, I knew all about the Mersey Sound – The Beatles, The Undertakers, The Big 3, Rory Storm and The Hurricanes et al and I desperately wanted to be at the Cavern, rubbing shoulders with Gerry Marsden and thighs with Cilla Black.