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’ …
Monsieur Salut writes: so disappointing to lose after playing well against title-chasing, time-wasting Man City. Sunderland deserved a draw, maybe more. And what a difference for Jan Kirchhoff. Disastrous at Spurs on his debut, pick of the pitch tonight. Decent starts for Kone, Kahzri and N’Doye. Take heart from this gallant defeat Lads. This is Pete Sixsmith‘s instant seven-word verdict. ‘Thought City were rattled’ he says,’and it showed in their constant whining and rolling around’ …
No man should blame another for fancying a few months in the vibrant Mediterranean city of Marseille. If Joey Barton can return unscathed, so can Steven Fletcher.
It is a surprising move in the sense that many of us expected him to end up at Celtic or West Ham, maybe, not to go abroad. But no one will be shocked to see him go somewhere, with just the rest of the season to run on his contract and no appetite on Big Sam’s part for prolonging his stay.
Martin Bates* and Duncan Watmore prepare for a pre-match discussion of macroeconomics and high finance
Salut! Sunderland is proud of the long-running ‘Who are You?’ series. We’ve had people from politics, business, the arts, sport, journalism, religion and loads of other walks of life and, often best of all, solid home-and-away supporters of the clubs concerned.
If someone agrees to do it, whatever their status, we are delighted and grateful. If they decline, that’s understood. If they agree and then go AWOL, ignoring all attempts to contact them, the mood darkens. We were chuffed to find a Manchester City supporter who has excelled in a sport other than football. Questions were invited and sent. Then, silence – with no response to gentle reminders in the usual places. So be it; he may have good reasons, despite his continued activity on social media, for being unable to respond even to the extent of saying ‘simply cannot do after all’.
Who knows? A warm, witty or wise City supporter somewhere out there may read this and, at this late stage, take the Unnamed Defector’s place (it happened last season, too, when Martin Haworth – in the North East but a lifelong City man – volunteered some emergency thoughts) …
Pete Sixsmith is a hardy soul. Point him towards a match and he’ll be there whatever the time, whatever the weather. Mind, this was one to shake his resolve …
My hope was to bring you tales of derring-do from Eppleton Colliery Welfare, where the Under 21s played Chelsea at the strange time of 11.45 on Sunday.
It necessitated an overnight stay for those who represented the London club, presumably at the Radisson in Durham, although the friendly substitute warming up could only tell me that “it was near a river”. The mention of the nearby World Heritage Site of Cathedral and Castle merely elucidated a shrug of the well paid shoulders and the recognition of the word Radisson.
With Jan Kirchhoff (Bayern Munich), Dame N’Doye (Trabzonspor), Lamine Kone (Lorient) and the “unattached” Steve Harper in, Wabi Kahzri‘s concluded deal from Bordeaux awaited and the exit door shown to Liam Bridcutt (Leeds United), Will Buckley (Birmingham City), Charis Mavrias (Fortuna Dusseldorf), Danny Graham (Blackburn Rovers) and Sebastian Coates (Sporting Lisbon) all loans – plus Costel Pantilimon off permanently (Watford) Big Sam has been busy.
Sadly, none off those ushered out will be greatly missed – all tried and all, with the exception of Pants frequently and Coates sometimes, failed – and we have yet to see whether the squad available to Allardyce when the deadline arrives at 11pm GMT on Monday will be good enough to keep us up.
Well, we all will be if Duncan Watmore, Fletch and Rodwell were to grab as many goals against Man City on Tuesday night. We could even ship five crackers from the Citeh elite and still win.
As soon as we heard the result of the “behind closed doors” friendly with Newcastle United – why do I always type it initially as Untied? – Mags were all over social media saying we’d only beaten their reserves.
From the excellent Chris Young of the Sunderland Echo comes the heartening news that Duncan Watmore scored three times as Sunderland walloped Newcastle 6-0 in the secret friendly.
Seven-in-a-row? Of course not. Of no importance? Debatable but yes, if you support NUFC – though even some of their fans are joking about Steve McClaren telling the TV afterwards he was proud of his lads’ “fantastic” performance and was just disappointed at the result.
Check out the Classic Football Shirts Sunderland AFC collection at http://bit.ly/1MEMc5Z
Ken Gambles was admirably prompt in his response to requests for contributions to the Beauties and Beasts series on Sunderland kits past and present. But Salut! Sunderland proceeded to lose or at least overlook his affectionate reminiscences on a special away strip from his youth. The search party has now reported back and we can make amends. What we cannot do is direct you to our friends at Classic Football Shirts to buy the shirt; they have 300,000 in stock but the SAFC range starts in 1981. And the YouTube clip below is in black and white …
