Last season, we got one. It took a fabulous (for us) miss from Tevez and other wasteful City play to keep us in it, but Darren Bent’s last-gasp penalty brought us a massive win. Just imagine what a similar scoreline tomorrow would mean for morale at the Stadium of Light. It is a big, big ask but here’s to the immense performance needed to pull it off.
Ten years after starting the Manchester City blog Bluemoon as a quick project for a web design course, Ric Turner* is still at it. He loves his club’s new-found success, has no wish to return to underdog days, quite likes Sunderland again now Steve Bruce has gone and predicts a result going to script …
Far too early to be starting to think about SAFC v Manchester City on Sunday afternoon? Not if you’re the Bluemoon site where they’re already running an interview with our own Pete Sixsmith. He began his shopping list of City players he’d welcome at the Stadium of Light with the Italian striker but, realising the list would never end, settled for Adam Johnson.
A pretty picture, but who are the Beauties and who are the Beasts in English football? Trust a Londoner to put Sunderland in the second category …
Canadian, married to a Liverpudlian whose heart lies at Anfield and working with a diehard Mackem, David Tack* really ought to reconsider his allegiance. But it’s Manchester United for him and he’s as avid from afar as anyone whose journey to Old Trafford can be made on foot. I make no comment about the thought process that inspired his choice of club and his answers to Salut! Sunderland reveal a thinking man’s approach to sport. Sadly, for us, he sees Saturday’s game going to script …
Salut! Sunderland: If I wasn’t sure where to start, I am now: which Old Trafford goal feast do you want to talk about, the one against Arsenal or the six Man City put past you?
Neither and both I suppose. While I did enjoy seeing the Gooners get a spanking, I was certainly gutted by our spanking from City. Overall, I don’t think either result was good for the league. Games among the top teams in the division should be fierce and closely contested affairs. When they become blowouts I feel a bit cheated by having not seen a great competition among the best teams in the best league in the world.
Were Newcastle United the last team to go down as heavily at home as Manchester United did today and still win the title?
Well that was in 1908, when we hammered the Mags even more comprehensively – 9-1 – at St James’ Park and they just shrugged it off to finish top anyway.
Things have changed in football. Surely after today’s mauling by Man City, 6-1 (going on 9-1 from what I saw of the procession of City chances following Jonny Evans’s correct sending off), United’s odds on keeping the Premier title will lengthen a bit. Probably already have.
Denise Hone*, ChelseaD from The Chelsea Blog, has been here before, but without the real name. She previewed our great win at Stamford Bridge last season and – despite that – agreed to have another go at the Salut! Sunderland questions ahead of Saturday’s return to proper, post-international football. Denise does her “biggest pessimist” credentials no harm as she offers interesting responses on a range of issues from changing places at the top of the Premier to her Chelsea loves and hates, cheating and the weather up north …
Salut! Sunderland: You obviously saw it coming, last season’s 3-0 win for us at your place? Explain it all the same!
I saw defeat coming, maybe not 3-0 to you but it was on the cards. We’d started the season so well after a rubbish pre-season but as every game went on cracks started to appear and the wins were less convincing. It was always a matter of time before the wheels came off – and when they did, it was no Formula One pit stop.
As mentioned here last Saturday, there may be no need for weekly digests throughout the close season, when good people ought to be turning their thoughts to holidays, picnics and Durham County Cricket Club (top of the league when last I checked).
But this has been an unusually busy week, more so than many during the football season.
We concluded a great set of end-of-season reviews, eight well-argued verdicts on what it was like to be a Sunderland supporter in 2010-2011.
There were the “Who are You?” awards to dispense – Arsenal the winners – plus musings on North-eastern footballing allegiances, Liverpool’s reported bid to lure Jordan Henderson to Anfield, one last look at the game in France … and the demolition of Manchester United by Barcelona. As always, click on the sub-heading if it makes you want to read more …
At each season’s end, we ask a group of judges to pore through up to 50 interviews with supporters of each team Sunderland faced in league and cup, and choose the best. Competition was tough; the panel was offered a non-binding shortlist that stretched to a dozen or so articles, and has reached its verdict …
The judging is over and we have our winners.
A superb season of “Who are You?” interviews, from which any of a dozen, maybe more, stood a decent chance of snatching a top three place in the annual awards, has produced its winners. And we are indebted to When Saturday Comes and Octopus Publishing for coming up with some prizes: a year’s subscription to the more than half-decent WSC, money to spend in the “shop” at the magazine’s website and a copy of the tremendous book of black and white football photography, John Tennant’s Football: the golden age.
Step forward, then, Tom Watt, a well-known NCO in the vast army of Arsenal supporters. In a close-run contest, Tom’s thoughtful, passionate answers were chosen by the Salut! Sunderland judging panel as the best of the lot.
Now we know it: Kevin Phillips will be starting on Saturday* intent on heaping more woe on Steve Bruce and Sunderland supporters: “You look at the teams we have got left at home – Sunderland, Wolves and Fulham – and it’s no disrespect to those teams but they are games we feel we can win.” Pete Sixsmith, though, has broken our collective duck: he’s actually witnessed a win, and over money-coming-out-of-our-ears Manchester City at that. You know what’s coming next …
A Sunderland win at last! I was hoping to use that header after Saturday’s trip to St. Andrews, but the Reserves beat me to it with a well deserved 2-0 win over Manchester City at Eppleton/Hetton last night.
Goals from Craig Lynch in the first half and Ryan Noble after the break, sealed the points in the last game of the regular season and possibly the last game to be played under the current reserve set up.