Premier League

Sixer’s Burnley Soapbox: no plan, no guile but at least a Chuck Berry payoff

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Jake’s verdict was ‘not enough’ and David Moyes felt unable to disagree

Monsieur Salut writes: normally, our deputy editor Malcolm Dawson introduces Pete Sixsmith‘s unfailingly compelling reflections on Sunderland matches. I have become quite proficient at following each match by internet streams and Barnes and Benno but Malcolm and Sixer both attend most home games and the lame 0-0 draw to Burnley was no exception (the interviewee for our first-class Burnley ‘Who are You?’ Duncan Sutcliffe joined them in County Durham yesterday to complete his journey from Lancashire to the Stadium of Light).

Sixer suggested that for once I should post his piece because, talking over the disappointment of the game by phone this morning, we both found bleak humour in my oversight, when sending my usual report to  ESPN, in inadvertently omitting Jack Rodwell entirely from my ratings. It was therefore, until quickly rectified, as if we had started with 10 men. Mmmm. Over to Sixer to ponder this Freudian slip and other striking features of a match that may prove decisive in our latest bid to survive in the top flight, and see if you can improve on his closing reference to the newly departed and truly great Chuck Berry …

 

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Sixer’s Sevens: Sunderland 0-0 Burnley. Unimaginative and wasteful

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Jake: ‘Benno got it right – just not enough’

Monsieur Salut writes: another wasted chance to keep in touch with anything remotely resembling safety. First half was abysmal, Burnley poor but often threatening whereas Sunderland were just poor. Very poor. Second half? Four or five excellent chances to score so it was undoubtedly better, but still so far short of being good enough. On his birthday, Pete Sixsmith had to field questions on social media about what could possibly spoil his day. His seven-word verdict, later modified a little and on which he will gloomily expand, tells it all …

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Hail Jermain Defoe, Sunderland and – once more – England

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Bravo, Jermain

Among the things it seemed impossible to believe, Jermain Defoe’s England recall was up there with “of course the pound will recover from Brexit” and “Sunderland won’t go down”.

Monsieur Salut can live, just, with the former being a somewhat improbable development – while allowing himself a mischievous chuckle at what’s it’s done to Magaluf spending dosh – and meekly accepts the latter is a forlorn hope.

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Nil desperandum: why Sunderland’s relegation would still not lead me to despair

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A younger, slimmer Malcolm Dawson with SuperKev.

This article by our deputy editor Malcolm Dawson appeared two years ago next Monday. Change the names and other details and it is as relevant now as it was then. Pete Sixsmith always threatens to jump ship, without – except in the 1997-1998 playoff season – actually getting wet; in fact, he will probably see a season or two, provided it is no more than that, in the Championship as a pleasant change from enduring life at the bottom of the Premier League. Malcolm suggested re-running the article so presumably feels the same as he did in March 2015, just after he’d watched Aston Villa thrash us 4-0 at the SoL; maybe a few tweaks would bring us up to date, but the article and its sentiments stand the test of two years rather well, so there has been almost no editing …

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Burnley Guess the Score and a Hull fan aids Bradley Lowery’s fund

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Jake: ‘is there any point in urging a special performance?’

Monsieur Salut writes: I had an itch to get this week’s Guess the Score out there, but an e-mail from a Hull City supporter exiled in Sri Lanka removed any doubt. You may recall that last week, despite Sunderland’s inactivity, we offered a mini-edition of Nick Barnes’s splendid Matchbook for the first to post correct scorelines in two games of interest to but not involving SAFC, partly because some unexpected advertising enabled us to do so and partly because the publishers, Tales from Red and Whites are paying £5 into the Bradley Lowery fund for each copy bought. So there were two winners – a Hull supporter and Bradley. Read on …

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Sunderland and Hull, Middlesbrough or Palace? Swansea or Bournemouth? Not WBA, as Leicester take off

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John McCormick
John McCormick: We’re  bottom and there’s now a gap

When I last reported in with the Salut Sunderland relegation watch we had had some recent wins but were still in the relegation zone, along with Swansea and Hull. (Swansea weren’t one of the clubs chosen in our start-of season poll but I included them in December on the grounds that some people did vote for “another club” and they  had begun to fit that bill after a decline).

That was only a month ago, just after the transfer window closed, since when new signings have had time to settle and new managers to generate – but maybe not sustain – a bounce. With a cup  weekend giving most of them a breather we have another chance to review  the situation.

But before I do, I have to congratulate West Bromwich Albion, who passed through our metaphorical barrier with ease. Would that we could reach such heights.

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Guess someone else’s score, help Bradley Lowery: Hull-Swansea, Bournemouth-West Ham anyone?

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Win the prize: help Bradley Lowery

 

Monsieur Salut writes: please see John McCormick’s fine piece on Barca 6-1 PSG. My view from France? The PSG collapse was lead item on the French lunchtime news, which I found shocking given there is also a presidential election campaign and a gruesome family murder in Brittany. I am quite pleased about PSG’s heavy defeat but only because I regard them as a fairly loathsome club and don’t (yet? really?) feel the same way about Barcelona. And now for some Salut! Sunderland housekeeping …

It boils down to an invitation to Guess the Score – in the absence of a Sunderland game – in either of the two matches affecting us, Bournemouth vs West Ham and Hull vs Swansea. Be first to be right in either case and you can either have the mini-version of Nick Barnes’s Matchbook, knowing a fiver will go to the Bradley Lowery fund, or – if, say, you support one of the teams involved – a mug reflecting your allegiance … in the latter case, Salut! Sunderland would pay the fiver into Bradley’s fund

Goes without saying that two first-to-be-correct scorelines = two prizes. You must have a UK delivery address.

14 Bournemouth P27 GD-15 Pts27
15 Leicester 27 -15 27
16 Swansea 27 -24 27
17 Crystal Palace 27 -11 25
18 Middlesbrough 27 -11 22
19 Hull 27 -29 21
20 Sunderland 27 -26 19

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Arsenal fans gun for Wenger but how Sunderland would relish his ‘failure’

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Jake: ‘sometimes we just like to intrude on other people’s grief’
  • Monsieur Salut writes: our friends at the Arsenal fan site Gunners Town (is the Steve Wellman in that linked item the Arsenal-supporting Steve Wellman I once worked with?) react with detached amusement when we dare to mention their club’s problems and wish they were ours.

    Last month, a piece in Arsène Wenger’s defence appeared on these pages. It was written by my daughter Nathalie, who once turned out as a sub in an Arsenal ladies’ pre-season friendly (they beat Swindon something like 13-1, Nathalie later had a trials evening at Highbury – she’s a good player, still –  but lacked the exceptional fitness levels required and went off to QPR instead).

    Gunners Town indulgently retweeted a link to her piece, which criticised the “bleating from Arsenal fans and the media about how Wenger needs to go” and included the immortal words: “My dad says he would love to have the kind of failure Arsenal have had.”

    A few hours after Nathalie’s article appeared, Arsenal were soundly beaten 5-1 at Bayern Munich. She saw no reason to change her mind. I am now awaiting her response to last night’s debacle, 5-1 all over again and this time at the Emirates (was it even quieter than usual there?). Don’t worry Gooners, losing at home by four clear goals feels a bit less painful once it’s happened a few times.

    Anyway, and this time with only the most tenuous of Sunderland links (Brian Clough’s decline as manager; we never saw decline as player, just a career-ending injury and regretted that he never managed us), is a dignified and well-argued post-Bayern II lament from Gary Lawrence, an Arsenal season ticket holder for more than 40 years. If you come here only to read about Sunderland, feel free to leave now. But what constitutes success and sackable-offence failure is a good football talking point … and yes, M Salut would still accept the sort of failure Arsenal fans have to endure: fifth top, League Cup quarter finalists, FA Cup semis, Champions League last 16.

    Maybe what north London needs is a few seasons of nailbiting escape acts from relegation, always fearing – as we do now – that time may have run out. Could be character-building …

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    • Sixer’s Manchester City Soapbox: our time looks up, but never say die

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    Jake: ‘no shortage of effort, but …’

    The exchanges between Pete Sixsmith, up in the East Stand, and Monsieur Salut, watching and listening in his French bunker (thanks Nick Barnes for the kind mention), were not encouraging. At half time, Sixer bemoaned being both the better side and behind. Long before the final whistle, after the killer second goal, he’d given up the ghost and did not update a seven-word instant verdict sent as City fans celebrated Sane’s cool finish. Where do we go from here? Sixer and I both fear the word is ‘down’. Pete does at least offer a smidgeon of hope with his very last words …

    Oh for the days of last minute goals by Ji Dong-won and Darren Bent and little scufflers from Phil Bardsley.

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    Sixer’s Sevens: SAFC 0-2 Manchester City. Enough fight, no finish or finesse

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    Jake: ‘no lack of effort and only two nowt. I almost class that as a moral victory’

    Monsieur Salut writes: we knew in our hearts how it would go. If only Fabio Borini’s header had been on target after Defoe hit the post and presented him with an open goal, if only David Silva’s passing wasn’t so precise, City weren’t so devastating on the break. If only. Positives: we put up a fight and, as Pete Sixsmith noted at half time, may well have been the better side until we went behind. In the end, though, we simply weren’t good enough. Sixer will be back to expand on the seven-word verdict you see below …

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