Steve Bruce

Sunderland report cards: the essential guide to our eight-part series

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Addick-tedKevin

In the end, the Positive Party succeeded in making its voice heard. Only the most naive supporter could expect the sort of post-January collapse we suffered to go unscrutinised, uncriticised. Equally, however, there were signs at various points of the season of real advances being made by Sunderland AFC and while no one should get carried away, it was right that these signs should be acknowledged in our contributors’ reports.

The eight Sunderland supporters who presented their reflections on the 2010-2011 season may not, when considered against a 40,000 average gate and the huge, absent diaspora, represent a scientific sample (even though the world is expected to take notice when an opinion poll is based on the views of 1,000 people drawn from a population exceeding 60m).

Even so, this is intended as a handy digest to a series Salut! Sunderland is proud to have published and offers brief extracts from each piece with a link leading to the full posting at the merest click of the subheading. And if the end-of-the-season partwork has run its course, rest assured the debate will go on …

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Sunderland report cards: (7) ‘Steve Bruce’s critics will eat their words’

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This is exactly what the series needed, as full-blown an endorsement of Steve Bruce as it is possible to imagine. Not because Martin Robson*, an exile in Vancouver, is necessarily right – all Salut! Sunderland readers will have a view on that – but because there has inevitably been a lot of criticism, despite the healthy finale, and it is important to see, acknowledge and then be able to assess the case for the defence …

After four decades of unfaltering allegiance, I could be forgiven for the following analogy: supporting Sunderland is a little bit like volunteering to stick your head and arms into a medieval stock in the middle of a thriving thoroughfare, inviting public humiliation and the scorn of those who pass by.

It’s a thankless slog. A pride-swallowing siege. An up and down ride-along with far more troughs than peaks. And so it was this last season.

The question is this. Are we making progress in the playing department? Are we on the right path? Is Steve Bruce the man to guide us to better times? I believe we are, and he is, and here’s why.

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Salut!’s week: trouncing West Ham, overtaking Newcastle .. Man United v Barcelona

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One week ago, we were worried that our depleted team we might be embarrassed at Upton Park, leaving us a place worse off than this time last season at lowly 14th. The 3-0 win made us eat our words, and very tasty they were too, at the start of a frantic week in which we ran three end-of-season reports, previewed the “Who are You?” awards and intruded on the higher ground of the Champions’ League. If you missed anything or want a reminder, read on …

The unmagical figure of £46 at one point raised the possibility that our final game of the season would be played out in the absence of the magical figure of Pete Sixsmith.

He swallowed his pride, overcame his anger with Sullivan and Gold and forgot pre-retirement impoverishment to opt for the day out anyway. And had a jolly good time. Click here to see his account of a good win which may have been against a thoroughly bad, demoralised side but lifted us to 10th place, two above Newcastle United (though the end-of-season reviews – see below – put that in perpective).

What else did we dream up in the hope of entertaining or stimulating supporters of Sunderland AFC – and the many others who stray in here because, well, because they do?

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Sunderland report cards: (3) how we missed Darren Bent’s goals

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The report cards are coming in thick and fast now. If Bill Taylor brought us down to earth with his pastiche of the post-match Steve Bruce e-mails, stand by for a few more home truths as Jeremy Robson casts a highly critical eye over goings-on at the Stadium of Light. Salut! Sunderland readers who think they know better should make contact and offer their own end-of-season reviews …

Few of us expected the wonderful start made to this last campaign.

Sadly, most of us could have expected from experience to suffer a second half collapse in form that occurred since Christmas and the departure of one Darren Bent.

Irrespective of whether we find the facts comfortable, Bent’s goals even in a lacklustre period for him, accounted for the difference between the first and second halves of the season.

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Sunderland reports cards: (2) separated from Newcastle only by colour of stripes

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Bill Taylor (L), with the Germany coach Joachim Low on a trip to Stuttgart

Also in the series:
* Progress achieved, but Newcastle can smile too

You were warned. Not every supporter of Sunderland was mollified by the 3-0 win at West Ham that took us above Newcastle United to a 10th top finish. There’ll be plenty of room in this series for optimism and praise. Salut! Sunderland is in the hands of those readers who choose to write end-of-season reviews. Bill Taylor is not so much downbeat as philosophical as he turns his thoughts into a spoof of one of those post-match e-mails we are accustomed to receiving from Steve Bruce. It will annoy some, amuse or stimulate others …

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Sunderland report cards: (1) progress achieved, but Newcastle can smile too

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As Niall Quinn prepares to convene his inquest into the more troubling aspects of a season that ended quite happily, Salut! Sunderland begins its own review of events from August to May. As promised, our contributors are applying their own powers of scrutiny and analysis to the questions of what went right, and what went wrong. M Salut gets the game under way …

First of all, an admission. In the immediate post-match glow of seeing Sunderland rise to a respectable 10th place finish, I overlooked two details: unbeaten in London and ending the season above Newcastle United.

Of course both matter, up to a point. We can be proud of having beaten Chelsea and West Ham away, with draws at Fulham, Arsenal and Spurs. And it is gratifying to remain the top North-eastern club. But I agree with the comment from “Billy the Fish”, which appeared here among responses to Pete Sixsmith’s matchday report from Upton Park, that we should really be concerned with our own performances, our own need for trophies.

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Steve Bruce on victory at West Ham (and the fans): ‘magnificent’

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We are quite sure Steve Bruce is thoroughly fed up with having to send, or have someone send, the weekly e-mail lauding a good performance but more often explaining a bad one. Salut! Sunderland shares his ennui. But we’ve started, so we’ll finish. How often have we had to preface his remarks by negative thoughts? How often has he seemed to be offering the same excuse as last time? And yet after all that, we get the top 10 finish – just, but it counts – that we wanted. It may make some of the end-of-season verdicts look a little different …

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Steve Bruce on being devoured by Wolves: and a sharp riposte

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“If the season had gone on a couple of games more . ..” said a sports editor of my acquaintance. We can all fill in the rest. Otherwise, words fail me just now. I didn’t expect to ease to victory but nor did I think we’d put in a second half display worthy of the humbling nature of yet another dire home defeat. Let Steve Bruce do the explaining, and then let one the recipients of these messages respond …I’m going out for the day

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Birflatt Boy: can we have Stoke City’s squad back again?

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Steve Bruce has been around football long enough to realise why people are calling for his head today. Some have been questioning his survival as manager for a little while. It goes without saying that anyone who disagrees- Martin in Canada? – should contact Salut! Sunderland, which will find room for the opposing view. But our shadily cantakerous Birflatt Boy is no mood to grant a reprieve. It is hard-hitting, maybe harsh stuff and M Salut would take issue here and there. But these are parlous times for SAFC; supporters now seeing yet another the season unravel can hardly be blamed for feeling aggrieved …

How many more nails to close this coffin?

Football managers can make some horrible decisions. Selling or buying players in transfer deals that should never have seen the light of day, dropping key men in vital games, getting tactics hopelessly wrong (if they ever had any tactics at all) and usually ringing up a series of poor results.

In our case, this combination of shortcomings and blunders has led to relegation on more occasions than people of a certain age can remember without wincing.

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