Millwall

Salut! Sunderland welcomes Lee Burge, competition for Jon McLaughlin

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Conor McLaughlin, courtesy of safc.com


Fans, understandably, look at new signings and, if a player is coming on a free transfer, feel underwhelmed and wonder whether progress is actually being made.

Long experience has taught Monsieur Salut to avoid rash judgements just because July starts without any major new additions. On that wretched but sometimes useful thing that is social media (beware, Trump’s there a lot), there are already early signs of concern, dismay and even panic among Sunderland supporters. Trump hasn’t yet expressed a view.

But Lee Burge, a goalkeeper newly released by Coventry City. arrives at the SoL as stand-in and competition – PLEASE, not as a replacement – for the excellent Jon Mclaughlin. He and Conor McLaughlin, a full back from Millwall, appear to be Jack Ross’s choices and for as long as we keep the faith in Ross, we must trust his judgement.

And come what may, Burge and McLaughlin – their photos appear by courtesy of safc.com –
deserve and get the traditional Salut! Sunderland welcome.

Lee Burge, courtesy of safc.com

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Scunthorpe vs SAFC prize Guess the Score: make Rod Liddle eat his words

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Jake asks for a return to winning form

Monsieur Salut introduces the latest prize Guess the Score competition. Don’t worry if your entry is ‘held for moderation’ – it can happen if you haven’t posted before or are using a different computer – as we will know when you tried to post it and if more than one reader correctly predicts the outcome, that will determine who was first …

At the beginning of the season, Rod Liddle – that most acquired of tastes as a man and a writer – wrote about Sunderland in The Sunday Times: “Let’s see how these overpaid moppets cope at Scunny on a cold January afternoon.”

Liddle is a Millwall fan so presumably won’t be there to “see” how things go.

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Will Cardiff or Fulham join Wolves, and will Derby join Villa and Middlesbrough?

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no slide rule needed

This will be my final dodgy numbers post of the season. (If you haven’t seen the previous ones you can follow the link above, and/or those below). There is still a game to go, and two questions remain unanswered, but we can now look at the league table and judge how well our start of season pundits did. Their choices for the top six spots, in order of popularity were: Middlesbrough, Aston Villa, Fulham, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland.

Three out of six, and wrong about the top two. Is that a “not bad” verdict or something worse? 

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Sixer’s weekend off. Snowfall, no football but Millwall

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John McCormick writes:

I had one of Millwall or QPR pencilled in as my London weekend away. Circumstances meant neither could be but those circumstances also meant we could book some time away at the back end of winter. We chose to visit the Lake District as February changed into March.

I took the photo of Newlands on the Wednesday.  I’d have taken one of Shap on the Thursday but I didn’t dare take my hand off the wheel.

Pete Sixsmith, in contrast, was looking forward to a weekend at home. Like my week away, it turned out out to be not quite as expected:

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Sixer’s Sevens: Millwall expected to win, we needed to. An underwhelming draw

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Jake: ‘it’s not always pretty’

Pete Sixsmith wasn’t travelling to this match and what appears here is likely to be a joint effort with John McCormick, Pete Sixsmith and Monsieur Salut – all from afar – and maybe Bob Chapman from the Den all chipping in. As M Salut writes, Sunderland’s failure to respond to Millwall’s second half pressure after taking the lead in the first half has led to an inevitable equaliser. ‘Have we enough character to weather the storm and see the game out?’ an increasingly exasperated Benno asked and the feeble resistance since the interval suggested worse was to come. Benno’s comments, and the commentary of Nick Barnes, exposed all our failings in a game that had to be won, not drawn, not because in-form Millwall are a soft touch but because our need is desperate. The seven-word verdicts are a) M Salut’s contingency offering and b) Bob’s view from the Den …

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A champion Championship series: the first time Sixer saw your ground or your team

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Sixer tastes the tropical flavour of a County Durham winter as he delivers the papers

Most weeks, readers of Salut! Sunderland drop by on Friday morning to catch the latest instalment in Pete Sixsmith’s twin series, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Ground (if the game in question is away), Team (if it’s at the Stadium of Light).

This week, the Millwall edition was posted earlier than usual – namely at this link.

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Millwall Who are You?: ‘ridiculous for SAFC to be in this situation’

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Stephen Jones: ‘I’ve been blessed as a supporter’

Stephen Jones*, our Millwall ‘Who are You?’ volunteer, joins the growing number of outsiders who doubt our ability to get out of trouble. Gone are the words of encouragement from earlier in the season. People who do not support Sunderland see the same signs as those who do. Of course, a few wins would change everything. But where are they going to come from given the difficulty we have in avoiding defeat let alone taking three points, no matter who the opposition? And a word of warning for our flaky defence: George Saville, who scored twice against us at the Stadium of Light, has been having a barren spell and may see a game against us as just the opportunity to start hitting goals again …

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Millwall vs SAFC Guess the Score: Lions tamed or Lions rampant?

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Jake: ever the cynic. What more could anyone want than a mug from Salut! Sunderland?

What will our leaky defence do next? Your guess is as good as mine but it could win you a prize, albeit only a mug.

Guess the Score is early again this week as Monsieur Salut is braving the Siberian chill to drive to what should be sunnier climes except that its snowing there as well.

And the competition reverts to the conventional format this week. That means the prediction does not have to be a winning scoreline for Sunderland to qualify.

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