Rob Hutchison, master of the occasional one-word, one-mark matchday ratings, returns to devil advocacy, with some strident and, doubtless for some, controversial thoughts on our plodding progress in the transfer window …
Hola kiddies . . . .another week in the life of Sunderland’s little devil.
Middlesborough. Was it a derby? Of course it was. They’re our almost nearest if not dearest. To claim otherwise is merely pouting that we don’t really care about these perceived also-rans. Bragging rights are everything, and when we beat them at the Riverside, oh it will be glorious.
Rob Hutchison – find him at Twitter on https://twitter.com/RobHSafc – is best known around here for his one-word ratings, always welcome and always arriving just as Monsieur Salut is about to go out, obliging little white lies to Mme Salut to cover the delay. He now launches an occasional new column, the idea for which appeared as a light bulb above his head as he returned from the opening game at City. He aims it to be weekly – I think occasional is more likely! – and also to devote it to the counter view to the norm on all things Mackem. Over to Jake to come up with a magical image …
Pete Sixsmith rightly and as ever closed the end-of-season reviews with his excellent piece on Friday. But there’s always one straggler and it would be unfair to deny Rob Hutchison a postscript, especially since he concentrates more on individual performances in an extended version of his customary one-word, one-mark ratings after matches he attended or managed to watch …
Rob says: ‘Sadly, I was away on holiday as we travelled the road to safety… a rather late look at the players and their full season ratings . . . I’m sure I’ve missed one or two, and no, let’s not bring Santi home.’ Monsieur Salut says: ‘Harsh on Yedlin. Otherwise, mostly ageed.’
Rob Hutchison is worried. ‘Point all round then,’ he says. ‘Seagulls still circling the northern trawler.’ Here are Rob;s customary one-word, one-mark ratings for Sunderland’s team in the disappointing 1-1 draw at Newcastle …
Jake: ‘look closely and you’ll see he can write more than one word a sentence!’
When does a draw feel like a defeat? Tonight, says Rob Hutchison</em>. ‘Yet we’re out of the bottom three for now. Feels like water slowly draining out of the bathtub, or death by a thousand cuts.’ Compare and contrast: Rob and Monsieur Salut, in his piece that will appear later at ESPN [now viewable at http://www.espnfc.com/club/sunderland/366/blog/post/2819708/deandre-yedlin-gives-finest-sunderland-display-vs-palace], broadly agreed on the man-by-man ratings, including a low-marking MOTM award for Yedlin …
There may be no Soapbox report of the Manchester City match. Pete Sixsmith’s internet has been playing up and Salut! Sunderland‘s deputy editor, Malcolm Dawson, is sorting out car problems. Malcolm was encouraged by what he saw but feels there is too much to do in the remainong 14 games to ward off the threat of relegation.
Meanwhile Rob Hutchison, our master of the one-word, one-score ratings, is purring in defeat. ‘Best performance of the season with no cigar,’ he says. ‘New signings look just the part. With that XI we’ll be fine wherever we are next season’ …
Rob Hutchison doesn’t waste words and his introduction and ratings tell the story perfectly from our 4-2 win at Swansea. Over to Rob;
Screw the PL to get the game moved. Then change 11 players, and lose by a duff red card before half time and an offside hatrick. There’s lovely karma for you.
Monsieur Salut writes: this is indeed the Swansea City v Sunderland AFC Guess the Score. From this game onwards, temporarily at least, we revert to ‘for fun only’. We will still come up with competitions whenever sponsors appear on the scene and it goes without saying that any reader who knows a potential candidate/business should get in touch. And in the meantime, have a go anyway …
We asked you to Guess the Score in the Arsenal FA Cup match, with a prize at stake for the last time unless and until a new sponsor comes along to replace Personalised Football Gifts, who depart with our thanks for generous past support (see https://safc.blog/2016/01/the-salut-sunderland-3m-hits-competition-nearly-there/).
And before that we asked you to let us know what we are doing well, what we could do better and what we shouldn’t be doing at all at Salut! Sunderland. To mark last week’s milestone – the three millionth hit since the site was launched eight years ago – we persuaded another supplier, Classic Football Shirts, to come up with a prize for the best response.
We have a winner to announce. And without trace of a fix, the same reader has won both prizes.
