Preston North End Who are You?: ‘Grayson thought he was stepping up’

Mark Collard: ‘a friend took this from Sky coverage of the Colchester game I mention in my answers. I am the baldy man with glasses and the moment captured is when Colchester were about to take a penalty but it sums up the day’

And now, Simon Grayson and Sunderland’s search for a point or three, as opposed to a search for a point even lower than reached so far, goes on Saturday to Deepdale, the famous old ground of the equally famous Preston North End with its Bill Shankly, Sir Tom Finney and Alan Kelly stands.

Mark Collard*, our PNE ‘Who are You?’ volunteer, was found at Twitter via Monsieur Salut’s electronic acquaintanceship with the singer and writer Maggie Holland. Mark, whose Twitter profile reads ‘archaeologist. director at Rubicon Heritage Services. PNEFC fan’, welcomes the newly positive Preston style under Alex Neill ‘after the tedium of a lot of the games under Grayson’. He sees our misery continuing with another defeat for the former PNE boss …

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Rock bottom, or worse ahead? Grayson on ‘five yards off the pace’ SAFC

Jake: ‘let’s start thinking of reasons to be cheerful’

 

Jason Steele may feel it was the curse of Salut! Sunderland. No sooner did we run a largely pro-Robbin Ruiter outsider’s piece on the battle for the No 1 jersey than Newton Aycliffe-born Steele is recalled to side only to concede five times.

But in yet another painfully dismal display by Sunderland, producing a crushing 5-2 defeat at Ipswich, Steele was nowhere near being Simon Grayson’s weakest link.

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Grayson’s uphill struggle to mould a viable Sunderland squad

… through the Championship, we’re on our way?

William Sundin, a media production graduate from Sunderland University (though strongly suspected of being an Ipswich supporter) takes another clinical look at SAFC’s fascinatingly complex fortunes and echoes the thoughts of a certain Sunderland hero that the defeat to Leeds exposed our limitations …

Sunderland have enjoyed a reasonably solid start to the Championship campaign though the rigours of playing with a limited squad appeared to catch up with them against Leeds.

Simon Grayson’s men were unbeaten heading into the match at the Stadium of Light. However, goals from Samuel Saiz and Stuart Dallas condemned Sunderland to their first defeat of the league progromme.

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Sixer’s Norwich Soapbox: Players are showing commitment to the club and to the support

Pete Sixsmith then (as in not so long ago)

John McCormick writes: Pete Sixsmith has finally made it home from seat U2 in the Carrow Road football stadium (hence the reference in the introduction to Saturday’s Sevens).  He probably has just enough time to grab some rest before he heads off to Sheffield. But before he gets his head down here he is with the heads up on a game more than a few of us expected to be difficult.

As ever, it’s a fine piece of writing. The bonus is that this time it’s about an excellent Sunderland performance:

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View from the Avenue: a sunnier Summerside outlook

Paul Summerside calls for a back to basics approach even if it takes longer than a season to mount a serious promotion challenge

Paul Summerside was Mr Doom and Gloom last season – as, in our different ways, were most of the rest of us – and eventually went on strike, boycotting the Stadium of Light in protest at David Moyes still being in charge.

After one home draw against broadly similar underachievers, he/we will hardly be proclaiming the return of Good Times. But in a fascinating debate at Salut! Sunderland‘s Facebook pages – join the group* if you haven’t already – he made these cautiously upbeat points. The optimism depends on Simon Grayson getting the proceeds of the Jeremain Lens departure (UPDATE: on reflection a lot less sensible and lucrative than it appeared; just a loan with SAFC receiving only £1.4m – and more – to strengthen his side …

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After Celtic drubbing, should we bet on promotion or avoidance of relegation?

Jake: ‘how much are we all putting on a home win to start the season?’

Monsieur Salut writes: what were our honest expectations for the coming season on, say, Friday night? And 24 hours later, after SAFC 0-5 Celtic? Did they dip still lower after hearing Darron Gibson’s unwisely expressed assessment of the true level of commitment among the players at Simon Grayson’s disposal? Too many questions. Let’s see how an outsider views our prospects …


After a disastrous 2016-2017 season,
Sunderland face a difficult test in the Championship.

Having ended last season with only six wins and six draws in 38 Premier League matches, producing a measly of 24 points, the club has been focused on strengthening the squad in the summer transfer window.

The original idea may have been to find a side capable of gaining promotion once again to the Premier League. Unless the humiliation of Saturday’s final pre-season friendly proves a blip, the sights may now need to be lowered.

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Can Simon Grayson’s ruthless streak help Sunderland back to the Premier League?

‘Lead us back to the top, John!’ Source: Sunderland AFC via Facebook

At Salut! Sunderland, we do not necessarily long to hear the thoughts of Leeds United supporters. Their lot aren’t especially keen on ours either. But one Leeds fan with more than a little to do with this article about Simon Grayson’s prospects at Sunderland strikes a happy note: ‘most of us consider him a quality manager at this level.’ That will do for us, too, won’t it?


It hasn’t been an easy ride
for Sunderland in the past year. Sam Allardyce left for the England job leaving the Wearsiders lumbered with David Moyes. Moyes failed to redeem his Manchester United and Real Sociedad failings and ended up taking the club down.

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Sixer’s Gigg Lane Gleanings after Sunderland beat Bury

Jake: ‘was that goals we scored? I’d forgotten what they were’

Pete Sixsmith‘s pre-season training got under way with a visit to Bury, where (Monsieur Salut believes) he saw Sunderland clinch promotion with a 5-2 win under Peter Reid in 1999. The early tweets were hardly encouraging. Two down and lots of moaning from fans who don’t buy the mantra that ‘it’s all about fitness’. Then a strange thing, mm well strange for recent times, happened; we scored three times. So Simon Grayson is off to a winning start, albeit only in a friendly ….

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