He sort of says it all …
Dear Colin,
Sometimes in football you have to take a knock like that and I’m scratching my head.
I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a game like that where we had so many attempts on goal without scoring. It was one of those days – we wouldn’t have scored if we’d have played all night.
But we have to go away, lick our wounds and get on with it. I signed Richard Kingson twice and I signed DJ Campbell too, and they’ve come back to haunt me.
Salut! Sunderland would much rather readers looked at and commented on Pete Sixsmith’s thoughts from Old Trafford or the Jimmy Armfield interview ahead of SAFC v Blackpool.
But here, for what it is worth, is this week’s edition of the billet doux I get after each game from Steve Bruce. Others may have received something remarkably similar so no pretence here that we’re really on first name terms.
In every walk of life, there is information that is available on a need-to-know basis to a small circle of people, but not disclosed more widely.
Football tries to be as secretive as most of those walks of life.
Fabio Capello has given us a good excuse to show off addick_tedKevin‘s latest Sunderland player image. Michael Turner was also, apparently, in Capello’s list of possibles (that outstanding second half at Spurs not quite enough to clinch it for him?), Darren Bent would have been involved if fit, so all in all we have reason to applaud the rising quality of Steve Bruce’s squad …
Thoroughly deserved selection, and reason for celebration (a sober one, on the eve of Chelsea away) for Jordan Henderson.
The lad has advanced by leaps and bounds under careful care at Sunderland and it will be a source of pride for those concerned with his development, as well as Jordan himself, that he may be about to win his first full international cap at just 20.
Colin Randall writes: on balance I would have preferred the post-St James’ Park inquest series to end on the relatively upbeat note – OK, non-suicidal note – struck by Malcolm Dawson yesterday (click here to see). But Steve Bruce is enough of a pro to have known calls for his head would inevitably follow such a disgrace as was witnessed on Sunday. Fans are split. Salut! Sunderland writers, as well as its readers, are probably split. Does he, as I believe, deserve to be judged on a longer period than 90 torrid minutes in Newcastle? Or is he a Kenwyne Jones blinder away from the sack? Lee Nichols*, writing here for the first time, was a doubter from the start …
After the nightmare, we wake up. Malcolm Dawson, entering the witness box of the Salut! Sunderland inquest, urges caution and a sense of proportion …
OK so the performance at Sid James’ Park was abysmal. We were trounced deservedly by a side that performed much better on the day, that were better prepared, both tactically and mentally and who showed more energy and commitment. In short a team that were up for it.
But this is not the time for overreaction and knee jerk responses in our camp.
Five one defeats are not good. Obviously! Five one defeats should give cause for concern and give rise to time for reflection. Obviously!
Long years, decades even, of disappointment and underachievement have made most Sunderland fans realists. Painful as it may be to face up to this, we were outclassed on the day by a Newcastle United team that deserved its massive win as much as we deserved (again, we hope, on the day) to have our quality – and yes, Steve Bruce’s tactics – exposed as woeful. A forlorn Pete Sixsmith gets it off his chest as an alternative to trying in vain to sleep …
Well, I didn’t see that coming. I thought there was a chance of us losing but not like that. Two average sides, one lightweight but with a sound defence and the other rather slow and ponderous with a tendency to concede goals at home; it looked like a 1-1 or 2-1 to me.
But 5-1? The result did not flatter them. There are no excuses to be made – we can’t say that the ref was useless, the goals were offside, they got lucky bounces. They were streets, miles, light years ahead of us in tactical nous, determination and ability.
It is an inquest that will run and run. Salut! Sunderland repeats, without further, unnecessary comment of its own, the statements emanating from SAFC following the Nightmare of St James’ Park:
Steve Bruce‘s dismissal of stories that he has put a £20m price tag on the head of Jordan Henderson is timely and wise.
One sure result of publicly stating such a value would be to announce to the world that Jordan was for sale.
And another would be to fix the quoted sum as the highly negotiable starting point, with one of the Manchester clubs, Chelsea or maybe even ‘appy ‘arry coming in with a joke offer of rather than less than half. For a player we very much want to stay at Sunderland anyway.
Owen Lennox* is a Sunderland supporter with unusual gifts. He is an author, as recently demonstrated on these pages with the story of his novel touching on Wearside history, he is an art teacher and he is an accomplished painter. Here, he describes how an attempted little sideline – painting SAFC figureheads in the hope they’d fork out to own the resulting masterpieces – slid slowly from the canvas …
As a practising portrait painter, when the commissions are few and far between I need to keep my eye in.
I am also an honorary member of the three little pigs’ society; I need to keep the big bad wolf from the door.
In order to kill two birds with one stone I use a ruse employed by the late John Bratby, he used to make portraits of famous people then contact them, on occasion they would buy their portrait, and this has proved a moderately successful ploy for me until it comes to famous footballers or managers.
Image: