Staying up made easy: emulate Arsenal and Liverpool against Leicester, beat Norwich

Jake's generic Salut gif
Acknowledgement:
All graphics courtesy of Jake

Pete Sixsmith says we will go down unless we win four games. Big Sam sets the same target. With only seven left, and looking at who we face in them, it takes a serious half-glass full believer to have much faith in that happening.

“Can we halt the Leicester juggernaut and drive the Foxes into a hole?” Sixer asked at the start of a splendid trawl through the nicknames of those opponents. ” Having done that, can we survive the plastic clappers at Carrow Road and knock the Canaries off their perch? Can we silence the Gunners, break the Potters and consign the Pensioners to their barracks. Will we come unstuck against the Toffees before drawing the sting from the Hornets?”

It looks beyond us. But it can be done, subject to rather a lot of Ifs.

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How the bottom of the Premier looks, and how it should look

Jake: the key to our survival, but can he please complete the big games?
Jake: the key to our survival, but can he please complete the big games?


Sunderland’s predicament is the stuff of shredded nerves.
Sam Allardyce talks of needing perhaps four wins and a draw from eight games and many of us doubt we are capable of producing anything like such a haul.

This, as we approach yet another weekend without “our” football, is how the bottom half + one of the Premier League looks:

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Newcastle 1 Sunderland 1: ‘it almost feels like a loss’

Jake's take on Big Sam
Jake’s take on Big Sam

John McCormick writes: the quote in the headline’s from Sam’s post-match letter to Colin and one or two others. I know what he means but I have to say, bad as Newcastle were, I don’t think we looked a lot better. Hoof and hope does not sit well with cultured players like M’Vila and Kirchoff on the pitch, and as for keeping possession and taking territory from the opposition, forget it. I don’t agree with Sam’s opinion that we controlled and dominated. As Sam also says “We tried to defend too deeply instead of getting on the front-foot; we needed to keep putting them under pressure” and we didn’t, so it’s no surprise to me that Newcastle had the time and space to come back at us and that we let in yet another late goal.

Here’s the full letter so you can read it and pass on your own opinion if you like.

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Sixer’s Sevens: Newcastle 1-1 SAFC. Two points thrown away

Jake: 'nerve-shredding'
Jake: ‘nerve-shredding’


Pete Sixsmith
saw DeAndre Yedlin’s schoolboyish attempt at a throw-in, rightly penalised, prompt the Newcastle move that broke our hearts. After coping well with the limited Toon threat up to that late point of the game, comfortably defending the splendidly taken Jermain Defoe opener just before half time, it felt like a real bodyblow when Mitrovic finished the move by easily rising above – yep – Yedlin to head home the equaliser. Newcastle then looked more likely than us to steal a winner in a game that ought to have extended six to seven-in-a-row but left us back in the bottom three. Sixer reckons we lost our way after being on top in the first half adding that our failure to hold leads could prove terminal …

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Can Sunderland avoid relegation? Seven-in-a-row would make a Yes more likely

Ye olde days
Ye olde days

Parts of Salut! Sunderland are a bag of nerves as the Tyne-Wear derby approaches. Six-in-a-row will count for nothing if Newcastle United end the run; even a draw may end up being insufficient depending on the result in WBA-Norwich on Saturday and, more important still, the outcome of Norwich’s forthcoming home games against both us and Newcastle. Here is an assessment of our chances, and how others rate them, from Noah Sparrow

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Newcastle United Who are You?: previewing the dogfight between Magpies and Cats

MagsAMalcolm Dawson writes…….for our pre derby WAY we enter the cloistered world of academia and find Durham University don Adrian Darnell proving that the phrase “intelligent Newcastle United fan” does not have to be an oxymoron. Adrian and I regularly cross swords over the Bridge table, where he is happy to play in Hearts and Diamonds, but steadfastly refuses to back my campaign to have our regular packs of cards replaced with those where Clubs are green and Spades are blue. The past couple of weeks have seen the boardrooms of both clubs in turmoil for different reasons, but it’s the action on the pitch that is in the forefront of our minds this week. Here’s how Adrian sees things in black and white with an honest and thoughtful set of answers.

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Newcastle United v Sunderland: mildly important game, prize Guess the Score

MagsA


Biggest in history
– and you see Jake wondering about that above – it may or may not be, but we do know rather a lot rides on Newcastle United v Sunderland.

Two of the three sides battling for the one obvious position of safety meet with all the baggage of not only a nerve-shredding relegation scrap but a long tradition of enmity and rivalry given the added spice of opposing managers who, shall we say, have not always got along too well.

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