We may as well indulge in some gallows humour.
Sunderland
Poyet: no poyetry, no motion, not even many words after Tottenham debacle
Monsieur Salut writes: I was relieved to discover no one else had jumped to attention and posted Gus Poyet‘s post-match reaction straight away last night after I’d knocked off my ESPN piece and gone to bed (which started out as ‘gone to bad’; see Ken’s comment). Not surprisingly, after the utter shambles of a second half that saw a respectable 1-1 degenerate into a 5-1 rout, that reaction was curt. But we, as supporters, have few sanctions available to us when let down as badly as this by our club. Not turning up – Pete Sixsmith has already said he will attend no further away games; we’ll be lucky if he bothers with the home ones either – is one. And Salut! Sunderland ignoring, if only by default, the head coach’s attempt at explanation until this morning is another. Pure Poyetry? Poetry in Motion? Hardly. Do not expect to learn much …
Sixer’s Sevens: Tottenham Hotspur 5 SAFC 1. An embarrassment
We all hoped. How many of us truly expected? Another quite shocking performance, this time in the second half at White Hart Lane after a creditable opening 45 minutes, probably seals Sunderland’s fate. A few minutes remain as I type and I can hear the wonderful away support singing heartily at 4-1 down. Of course the maths are still on our side, if only just. But even at 2-1, witnessing defending as sloppy as it comes Pete Sixsmith considered the game well and truly up. ‘Embarrassing,’ Gary Bennett has just said, and still our fans sang …
Sixer’s Travels: where on earth is Sauchie and who was Slim Jim?
Pete Sixsmith will be at White Hart Lane for a night most of us face with a gloomy sense of the inevitable. So he made sure he had a decent weekend first and refused to let it be ruined the small matter of a postponed football game …
For those whose lives have been incomplete since I set the poser on Friday, the answer is Jim Baxter.
Tottenham Hotspur v SAFC ‘Who are You?’: they thought they had problems
At ESPN, I have suggested that Gus Poyet tries to get his hands on the Edison wax cylinders on which Harry Houdini, not Harry Hood, recorded a description of one his greatest escape acts a century ago this year. He could then play it repeatedly to the team before Monday night’s game at Spurs. As our grasp on Premier status gets ever weaker, we come across Marc Aron*, one of the Tottenham fans responsible for the e-spurs site (@e_spurs at Twitter) with a mission to ‘bring N17 closer to fans around the globe’. He’d find few SAFC supporters to share his assessment of our Jozy, based on what we’ve seen …
Tottenham vs SAFC ‘Guess the Score’: routine defeat or Houdini escape act begins
Here’s a deal. I will offer a prize mug for each remaining game in which we start with a mathematical chance of staying up. I will even send mugs off to those kind enough to have become Friends of Salut! Sunderland – eyes right please – just as soon as I can persuade myself I have time.
Sixer’s West Ham Soapbox: Hammers bang more nails in the relegation coffin
You’d be forgiven for thinking our esteemed illustrator, Jake, and our resident chronicler of doom, Pete Sixsmith, were pretending for April Fool’s sake to be on strike. In fact, Jake is in hospital in Spain (here’s hoping they sort you out, pal) and Sixer had a full day’s work at the chalkface. Needless to say, both are in gloomy spirits. I felt for Jake, having to recover my score texts, but maybe he’s grateful the hospital, didn’t have us on live. And here, not for the squeamish is Sixer’s appraisal of yet another 90 minutes of rank disappointment …
Poyetry in Motion: ‘we tried our best’ against West Ham
And the best, Mr Poyet, was simply not good enough. Certainly not good enough to inspire anyone to stay up and post your e-mail here last night …
Hayley Mulls: forget One Direction, give me my new Sunderland book
We must all be having our different ways of trying not to think too hard about tonight. A friendly Hammers voice on Twitter – @whustuff – offered a deal: they win, we still stay up. I declined on the grounds that we probably couldn’t do the last but without the first.
Instead, I called up this lovely account of a typical day spent at the Stadium of Light by 10-year-old Hayley Penman, a Scots lass I occasionally see with her dad in the East Stand concourse. I also sat with her dad at Wembley – Hayley settled for the promise of a ticket for One Direction, though I am not sure which Scottish league they play in. Ah for the innocence of youth …
Over to Hayley …
Sixers Says: Allardyce’s Hammers need to be nailed
That’s Pete Sixsmith‘s appalling pun in the headline – Monsieur Salut is quite capable of coming up with his own – and it’ll be Big Pete’s presence that is felt on BBC 1’s Late Kickoff on Monday night. In what spirits will Tuesday morning find us? Pete discusses the stakes …