The older you get, the less bothered you are if a dozen top-class signings haven’t been made by the second week of Wimbledon. Jack Butler, a new guest contributor*, helpfully fills in some of the detail of news on which Salut! Sunderland has so far had little to say: the arrival of, or reported deals for, relatively unknown names. And Jack sees reason for concern that others among the Premier League non-elite gave been more active as buyers …
As Salut! Sunderland edges ever closer to a two-million hits milestone, readers are invited to enter the smart-alec competition at https://safc.blog/2013/06/salut-sunderlands-two-million-hit-party-even-newcastle-are-invited/. I have attractive prize details to announce very soon. Meanwhile, Lars Knutsen looks ahead to what is needed in the coming season – and back at the efforts PDC has been making to impose a new disciplinary code …
During Martin O’Neill’s final months as SAFC manager, it became increasingly hard to gather and comment on news for a Reflections piece for Salut! Sunderland, writes Stephen Goldsmith. It seems unlikely Di Canio’s reign will be similar. The end of season is generally a bit of a lull for bloggers and writers, who try their best to avoid getting carried away with bogus and erroneous transfer targets. There have been a couple of interesting developments in the last week, though, “that’s for sure” (Bruce: 2009/2010/2011).
Gareth Barker has been thinking about Mark Hughes’s appointment as replacement for the sacked Tony Pulis at Stoke City and this led him to reflect again on Sunderland’s dramatic change from Martin O’Neill to Paolo Di Canio. In his parallel Sunderland universe, Gareth sees another 1-1 draw. Both clubs, he argues, got it right …
There has been lots of media coverage of PDC’s stern ways with lack of effort, truancy, inappropriate behaviour out of school and seriously bad marks. We’ve done our share at Salut! Sunderland and this is something Monsieur Salut prepared earlier – namely for his pages at ESPNFC.com. When I said in my most recent piece there that we could expect more of the same to come, I was aware of the anonymous player who’d called in claiming to be suffering from food poisoning before retreating into telephone silence for hours. I was unaware of the Bramble fine for whatever it was he did or didn’t do in training.
But this – and it could become another series – is my way of welcoming at that ESPN site a tougher approach to player power …
What a relief. Escaping relegation was good enough. Not having to worry about Guess the Score, Who are You? and other items of Salut! Sunderland stock-in-trade has allowed Monsieur Salut to approach in relaxed spirits the part of his work that actually pays. The end-of-season reviews have naturally been time-consuming but in reality needed little or no editing and – notwithstanding the predominantly downbeat tone – have been a pleasure to deal with. Apologies to those who intended to submit reviews but didn’t get round to it in time; nine lives is all the series gets and they’ve all been used up. As is customary, Pete Sixsmith brings the exercise to its climax (a notion more exciting than much we saw during the season). His Soapboxes and Sevens, travelogues, rants and reminiscences are what, more than anything, give this site its identity. I just hope, and every reader of Salut! Sunderland should hope, he gets to more games next season than he currently thinks is likely …
And so another season draws to a close. It’s fair to say the contrast in the campaign’s two managers …
John McCormick writes: As my brother-in-law Ed and I walked from Goodison into the well-worn district of Tuebrook, to await a bus that never arrived, it started to rain. During the long cold winter which followed it felt like there would be no more buses and precious little sunshine coming. And so it proved until Wigan lost at Arsenal, and even then it was someone else’s bus.
Stephen Goldsmith is not just a budding broadcast sports journalist, podcast wizard and Salut! Sunderland assistant editor. He also coaches children. In the latest of our end-of-season reviews – the series will end soon with Pete Sixsmith‘s calculations of how well spent his season ticket money was – Goldy says his young charges show more movement and pace than our midfield managed at times …
Ken Gambles is a regular contributor to Salut! Sunderland. He has endured worse than the season just gone, enough to enable him to pinpoint Sunderland’s varied failings but also to hope for a better future as the PDC broom sweeps clean(ish). This is Ken’s review of a season in which, as Gambles go (sorry, Ken!), keeping MoN would have been more rash than hiring Di Canio …
Yet one more disappointing season in what seemed to be an encapsulation of all it means to be a Sunderland supporter.