Sunderland

West Brom Soapbox: with Arsenal next, was this fightback or failure?

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The script is depressingly easy to write. Two clubs go into battle with similarly pressing needs to lift the early-season gloom, but one of them is Arsenal, they’re at home and unlike us, they’ll probably have an established PL striker to call on (Bendtner, of course, being unavailable). Pete Sixsmith wonders whether the fighting spirit we showed to get a draw, though no more, against West Brom can help us prolong an unbeaten record in London that stretches back to April 2010 …

At 3.06 on Saturday, the knitting needles were out as 35,000 of us contemplated a very public execution of Steve Bruce, preferably on the pitch at half time. The first draft of the Seven (Sixer’s seven-word matchday verdict – ed) had been written (“Inconceivable that Bruce can survive after this”) and, although we basked in glorious autumn sunshine, the atmosphere was icy cold.

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A West Brom postscript: ‘Dear Steve … reach for the Sky’

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Sunderland showed character to turn a shocking start into a game we might have gone on to win. But it was against WBA at home and, and with respect to a likeable club, that is not quite like Arsenal and Man Utd away, two of our next three games on the road. Relief at yesterday’s equaliser hardly banished discontent. Ian Porter shared this response to Steve Bruce’s post-match message (see Bruce’s Banter) with fellow subscribers to the Blackcats list …

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your post-match e-mail.

It was good to see The Lads suck with it and dug deep instead of huffing and puffing again.

It amuses me watching your team nowadays, as it reminds me so much of watching many other games at the Stadium of Light and I regularly draw similarities between players of yesteryear and today.

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Salut!’s week: special Norwich, West Brom and Charlie Hurley edition

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The best of Salut! Sunderland‘s week – and often enough the worst – is summarised in this slot provided M Salut finds time do it. After what happened at Norwich, and in matters legal, it took one Baggie’s pre-match Q&A and another’s Charlie Hurley poem to make him find time this week …

Today, with all the stormwater that has swept under the bridge, a comprehensive review of what we’ve covered would be just too depressing.

If you want to read what Pete Sixsmith made of Norfolk before the match at Canary Road, that’s fine. Click here – Pete’s spirits were high at that point.

If you want to know what he thought of our performance, you must root around the site for yourselves. It would not be kind to post the link here, even though the piece was, as usual, well-written, intelligently argued and, in the circumstances, restrained.

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Bruce spot-on with Bramble; Bardsley needs a rocket too

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Is it a breach of Salut! Sunderland‘s policy of getting fully behind the Lads before matchday to support Steve Bruce’s comments on the Titus Bramble affair? I don’t think so.

Bramble has been suspended pending a club investigation into those aspects of the early-hours Yarm incident that concern club discipline. He therefore plays no part in the approach to West Brom at home tomorrow.

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The WBA ‘Who are You?’: is Charlie Hurley for sale?

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Salut! Sunderland rules are clear: as matchday approaches we set aside all carping and get 100 per cent behind the team. It is an important game for both clubs (seem to remember saying the same last season) and we are delighted to welcome David Walford*, a West Brom fan found for us by his SAFC-supporting neighbour Ken Gambles …

 

 
Salut! Sunderland:
Four defeats, one win and a draw so far and you’re second bottom of the league. But it was a tough start: do you feel optimistic or fear the worst from the season ahead?

All Albion fans are pessimists by nature so, of course, I fear the worst but would probably still do if we were top.

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Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse: part 2

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From our friend Addick-tedKev

Thanks heavens for the principle of Innocent Until Proved Guilty.

When Sky Sport quotes Cleveland Police as saying “a 30-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and possession of a Class A drug”, that 30-year-old male is Titus Bramble.

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‘Win or lose to West Brom, Bruce, your time’s up’

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Salut! Sunderland does not believe in kicking a man when he’s down. Neither Pete Sixsmith nor Colin Randall, who broadly cobble this thing together, has so far joined the crowds gathering in the Tuileries to knit as Madame Guillotine does her work. One more bad result and that could well change. Others are made of hardier stuff; one more bad result would already be too late for our regular contributor and confirmed tricoteur, Jeremy Robson …


Those of us over a certain age have lost count of the relegation battles fought and lost as well as a few that we managed to win to avoid the dreaded drop.

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Soapbox: knocked about in Norwich, a Russian proverb for Bruce

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If you have come here looking for rays of hope, an upbeat prediction of brighter times ahead, turn away now. After watching the team that destroyed Stoke fail with a whimper at Carrow Road, Pete Sixsmith despairs of our version of Premier League football …

Our last three away games have been against clubs who have recently been playing in the third tier of English football. We have failed to win any of them.

All three (Swansea, Brighton and Norwich) are managed by bright, imaginative young managers who clearly think very deeply about the game and get the maximum out of relatively limited players.

If we look at last night’s game ( and believe me, I don’t want to see any of it ever again|), we had a fluid and flexible Norwich City, managed by the up and coming Paul Lambert, against a plodding and predictable Sunderland side, managed by Steve Bruce, a man who may well be heading for a lengthy spell on the golf course.

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Bruce’s Banter: but was it just possession we surrendered, Steve?

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Crisis, what crisis? That was the question after Stoke. But one game on, we’re back to where we were, unable to muster a proper fight against a promoted team and probably fortunate to be beaten only 2-1. It felt like a wretched, wholesale surrender. Against this unattractive backdrop, Steve Bruce had to come up with something for his post-match e-mail …

Dear Colin,

We didn’t play well enough. We played well for the first 10 minutes or so, but the night was littered with mistakes.

We surrendered possession too easily and gave the ball back to them too quickly for me.

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