It seemed as good an idea as any.
Blocking the more mindless Toon comments was quite enjoyable, delighted as I am that literate and/or decent NUFC supporters come here in such numbers (AGAIN: only have to mention NUFC and you get a swarm of them).
But I needed more.
Buy the mug at this linkThis was the day we wanted revenge for that humiliation – two humiliations really – of last season. Losing at home is always bad, and we did plenty of it last season. To lose at home after all the assertive pre-match talking up of our determination, our desire is worse. And to lose at home to Newcastle United, with an abject second half display that wouldn’t have threatened Hartlepool Reserves, is the stuff of despair. Steve Bruce e-mails us, and a few others, with his own post-debacle thoughts …
Dear Colin,
We’re massively disappointed.
The domination we had in the first half and the chances we created; we needed to score and take advantage of the opportunities we had and if you don’t score you don’t win a football match and we’ve been punished.
Buy the mug at this linkSo, we get a great crowd, a proper sense of occasion, bags of anticipation, a bright enough start – and then a total flop.
For all our efforts in the first half, which might on another day have produced a goal or two (but also a sending off for us and a goal for Newcastle United), we barely turned up for the second.
Buy the mug at this linkOuch! Mignolet’s desperately poor positioning allows Ryan Taylor’s free kick from the elft to sail over him. One-nil to the Mags and that was how it stayed.
THIS POSTING HAS BEEN SUPERSEDED – by this
Big controversy but no goals in the first half.
The first 45 were busy, niggly and mostly dominated by Sunderland. But arguably neither Seb Larsson nor Yohan Cabaye ought to have finished the half, and Newcastle should have gone ahead, massively against the run of play, with a penalty.
Salut! Sunderland‘s look back on the week just gone may not appear every single Saturday – it is a useful guide for the busy reader but also time-consuming – but resumes with links to much of what has been written here about the Liverpool opener, Joey Barton’s antics at St James’ Park and today’s Derby …
Time for all posturing and pre-match boasting to end. Kickoff is only a few hours away and some of us may be ecstatic, others despondent, come 2pm.
The derby has made it a busy week at Salut! Sunderland. But the flurry of activity here began with the ultimately satisfactory draw at Anfield.
That description came not from a blinkered Sunderland fan but, or so it is said, the Newcastle United dressing room. Salut! Sunderland applauds a straining-to-be-fair-but-honest appraisal of Joey Barton …
No one living outside the strangely mixed mind of the Newcastle United midfielder truly knows the answer to the question posed in the headline.
The countdown begins. But to what? Pete Sixsmith ponders on the big match. Is that a hint of optimism I detect? …
The day is nearly upon us. The day that we look for first in the fixture list when it comes out. The day that usually comes in October or February. And it’s happening tomorrow… August 20, second game of the season, first home game for us, first away game for them.
It was Dolores O’Riordan, lead singer of the Cranberries, who offered the elegant thought the opinions are like a*******s since everyone has one. I am sure others have said the same or similar.
But as we approach the first of this season’s derby games with Newcastle United, here is a selection of opinions I have spotted here, at Blackcats or elsewhere, alternating Mackem and Mag words of wisdom …
A few of the Newcastle United supporters who have come here this week have made the claim, in different ways, that Sunderland fans care that much more about Newcastle United than vice versa.
Mrs Logic
It is debatable whether this is really the case, but when you look at this paragraph from the BBC website, repeating a fact that is hardly unknown to most passionate SAFC or NUFC supporters, you begin to realise why we care an awful lot:
Sunderland have only won on two of the last 21 occasions they’ve hosted their rivals since 1967, with Kieran Richardson’s rocket of a free-kick three years ago bringing their only win in nine played at the Stadium of Light.
Michael Hudson* is the man behind the Accidental Groundhopper blog on non-league football and also our guest Mag ahead of Saturday’s game. And he is already a contributor to Salut! Sunderland. Before his excitable co-supporters cry treason, let it be said that his scholarly but also entertaining piece on the first Wear-Tyne derby – 1644, reputedly a narrow Sunderland win – appeared at our request. Today, he talks of Mike Ashley’s mixture of sense and nonsense, the despair he’d feel if Newcastle were taken over by super-rich owners and his belief that the battle between Cattermole and Tiote could decide the match …
You promised to be a model of politeness unless I asked about Mike Ashley. Sorry, but what do you really think about him?
Firstly, you have to put Ashley into his proper context. Newcastle United have rarely, if ever, been a properly run football club and Ashley’s no worse than Shepherd, McKeag or, back in my dad’s youth, Lord Westwood. I actually think Ashley has some sensible ideas – ending the ruinous expense on the likes of Michael Owen, for instance, or this season’s introduction £100 season tickets for under-16s, but, overall, I don’t think he understands enough about the way football works to run a club effectively. The fact he bought Newcastle without bothering to do due diligence tells you everything you need to know.
Mrs Logic