From the Republik of Mancunia came Scott the Red‘s customary questions. Not so much about Sunday’s match, more on last season and this one’s prospects. The first three comments attracted by Monsieur Salut’s interview for his site all cockily predict a United win on Sunday. More responses may be expected once the USA and Far East get up and running today or tomorrow …
Never say Pete Sixsmith is a reactionary old grump. He may like Brian Matthew, old-fashioned football with short back and sides, music-free terraces and fans who have at least some idea of the geographical location of their chosen clubs. But – oops, we’ve just realised there are no buts …
In half a century of following Sunderland, Pete Sixsmith has seen it all:opening day excitement, hope, nerves, dismay, despair … the list could bump his match report off the site. And he got most of that in one day on his trip to West Brom. Read on …
John McCormick writes: I was hoping to make this match but it was not to be and I had to make do with a dodgy feed. When we scored I thought ******, then they scored twice and I thought ****** again, but for different reasons. And then when hope was dying our Viking proved he was worth his new contract with a point-saving goal and I thought ****** once more, this time because two midfielders had scored and that’s a bit of a novelty.
Two forwards scoring would be a bit of a novelty, too, I think. It’s time Fletch and Jozy showed their worth.
That’s enough of my thoughts, what about the manager’s? Here they are, as sent directly to M Salut in his personal post-match e-mail:
Our youngest columnist by some margin, Keir Bradwell, quickly follows Pete Sixsmith back into action with the return of his man-by-man SAFC player ratings. You are at liberty to disagree …
Pete Sixsmith begins another round of instant seven-word verdicts on the games he sees – which is most SAFC games; supersubs stand in if he’s absent – with today’s 2-2 draw at the Hawthorns. He saw Lee Cattermole’s excellent long-range shot beat Ben Foster after five minutes only for SAFC to repeat old bad habits of defending far too deep for the rest of the half, which ended with a Baggies equaliser from a debatable penalty. A lead for Albion on the 74th minute seemed likely to decide the game but Seb Larsson scored a fine late equaliser afetr great work from Jordi Gomez and Patrick Van Aanholt. Jack Rodwell? A debut to forget…
Week after week, a diehard Sunderland supporter Simon R – @sie_ftm at Twitter – includes @salutsunderland in his #FF (Friday follows once tweet abbreviations are converted to tweetspeak). Most Fridays, I thank him.
Today I added my eve-of-season thought: “The usual mixture of excitement, hope and apprehension!” To which Simon threw trepidation into the mix.
Salut! Sunderland welcomes Will Buckley to the Sunderland family after his signing for another of those idiotic “undisclosed fees”, aka £2.5m in this instance if reports are right, from Brighton.
We know little about Buckley but Gus Poyet knows his football, liked what he saw of him at Brighton and decided he was good enough for the Premier. So that’s good enough for us provided the winger now takes the big chance he’s been offered.
Are woodentops in charge at Selhurst? Among insane decisions in football, away from Luis Suarez’s insistence on fighting tooth and jaw for what Uruguayan officials assure us as are just South America’s ‘different’ cultural traditions, the forced exit of Tony Pulis from Crystal Palace must rank high. To adapt a witty thought in today’s Guardian, ‘mutual consent’ was possibly a typo for ‘mutual contempt’ between Pulis and co-chairman Steve Parish. So Palace start the season without one of the few men in football who could have dragged them out of the mire last season. And all after our own Sixer heaped praise on him ….
Nathan Carr*, all of 17 years old and a WBA season ticket holder, returns for another session of questions and answers to relaunch Salut! Sunderland‘s “Who are You?” series. It’s fair to say he wasn’t greatly impressed by the Baggies’ managerial choice …