With due acknowledgement to AgentOrange731 at YouTube
It’s a little like a game in itself. Paul Summerside puts a longish post on the Salut! Sunderland pages at Facebook, knowing I’ll often enough bite and republish it here. And my old pal Barry Emmerson chips in, too. If I didn’t have this distraction from writing about Islam in France or political turmoil in Lebanon, I’d probably go mad. Both comments were in response to mention of this week’s Guess the Score …
Monsieur Salut digs deep yet again – and promises to keep up the selective double-prize offer until Sunderland finally win a Premier League game …
Honest, I swear I kept a straight face while writing that headline.
No, I am not any more confident than the next sufferer. But Sunderland have to win some time – a Newcastle United fan reminds me that when Derby went down with 11 points, their solitary victory was 1-0 versus the Mags – and Saturday, before my own eyes, wold be a great place for it to happen.
So I will maintain the discriminatory approach to the prize: until Sunderland finally win, the winner of Guess the Score, ie the first to predict the eventual scoreline, will qualify for not one but two mugs if opting for a SAFC victory.
We have been wanting a chat with Nick Barnes and Gary Bennett for a while. In some ways an unlikely pair, the tweed-loving culture vulture with a passion for the countryside and a former player and manager, fondly remembered for the sheer commitment he gave in red and white, who eschews tweeds in favour of the heart he wears on his sleeve …
Monsieur Salut writes: there’s one thing that makes having an otherwise disloyal Liverpool-supporting daughter feel a little less shaming (it had something to do with John Barnes being an early crush, I suspect). Nathalie Randall does also have some affection for Sunderland, having been dragged to Roker Park, the SoL and elsewhere by her dad over the years This was her assessment of the Arsenal game – and sorry David Moyes, but collapse is what is was. Just another view, but interesting that she felt Didier Ndong was our best player (I gave him 5/10 at ESPN) …
Winless Sunderland plunged to another defeat in the Premier League, this time to high-flying Arsenal, starting started well with the passion and intense pressure that helped keep them up last season, but also showing a distinct lack of creativity and quality with often the cross or final ball.
Malcolm Dawson writes……it’s fair to say that Pete Sixsmith was incandescent after yesterday’s performance. I have no intention of bringing …
Sunderland AFC has effectively confirmed to Salut! Sunderland that it is considering the possibility of scrapping the Premier Rate phone numbers, otherwise known as ripoff lines, that hit fans in the pocket when they call the SoL – without producing significant income for the club.
That, at least, is my interpretation – a fair one, I think – of the club’s response to questions I posed earlier this week.
Hats off to Tony Merakli, editor of the Arsenal fan site Gunnersphere, for stepping in gamely at the last minute when we were let down by his counterpart at another Gooners’ blog. Tony fears, as do most ‘Who are You?’ interviewees these days, that we’ll drop but believes we are a massive club whose fans deserve so much better. He also has a liking for ‘that Watmore kid’ but thinks we are in for a heavy defeat against his side on Saturday …
Monsieur Salut briefly forgets how poor he feels just now and digs ever deeper in a desperate attempt to inspire a Sunderland win …
What could possibly be better than winning a prize mug from Salut! Sunderland? Right first time: two prize mugs. And what could possibly be a safer bet than to offer any prize at all that depends on a Sunderland win? Answers on a postcard to Mr D Moyes c/o the Stadium of Light, Millennium Way, Sunderland, SR5 1SU.
Most of our loyal army of optimists went for a Sunderland win at Southampton. No one correctly predicted a 1-0 defeat.
Monsieur Salut writes: I rely tonight on Benno and Barnes who acclaimed Sofiane Boufal’s wonder goal that beat us, praised Djilobodji for perhaps his best game since signing, considered Ndong ‘awful’ and agreed our first touch and passing were generally poor. No Pete Sixsmith this time so it is a substitute Seven …
Monsieur Salut presented a brief argument in favour of sticking with David Moyes at this link. Rob Hutchison has already made the case more strongly here
We both knew our views would be controversial. And so it has proved. Some good, robust replies point legitimately to shortcomings in Moyes’s brief reign.