Sunderland

Fixtures and rumours, Villa and Cardiff, Mannheim and mayhem

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Pete Sixsmith gets his teeth into the rumour mill and fixture list planners and risks more Villa wrath with some mischievous managerial suggestions. He also halls a German team (on our pre-season tour) with an unlikely slogan …

Fixtures are out on Friday, so no doubt we will get Swansea away on a Tuesday night and Norwich away on New Year’s Day. Not that the original list is much to go by. After Sky and ESPN get their mitts on it, we will be looking at Saturday evenings, Sunday mornings and Monday nights.

In the meantime, we have lots and lots of conjecture about who’s coming and who’s going. According to this morning’s rumour mill, Darron Gibson and Wes Brown are about to sign – although Brown may opt for Blackburn or Bolton – and John O’Shea is reluctant to move from Old Trafford.

Ji Dong-Won, Seb Larson and Kieran Westwood are waiting for their contracts to run out before they sign for us and David Ngog will “put pen to paper” (love that phrase) when he returns from his two weeks at Butlins, Minehead.

Players leaving are Nyron, George McCartney and Matt Kilgallon, if we can find anyone to pay their wages, while there are kites being flown with respect to Craig Gordon and Steed Malbranque being “offloaded”.

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Gyan to go. To Spurs? Or transfer talk just getting silly

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Image: addick-tedKevin

Niall Quinn’s denial is welcomed and reported at this link. Rather puts Mr Alan Nixon of the Daily Mirror on the spot. Read on …

Last week Salut! Sunderland offered an unfashionable defence of football journalists after all the speculation surrounding Jordan Henderson, at least to the extent of pointing out that despite kneejerk condemnation of the press, the reports had turned out to be true in almost every respect.

The sting in the tail was the warning to take all such speculation with a pinch of salt, unless it seems convincingly sourced or has some sort of common sense basis.

But what on earth are we to make of this morning’s devastating headline above a report at Ghanasoccernet.com: Shock as Sunderland put up Asamoah Gyan for sale … ?

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Chairman Bob, and the star of British cinema who eulogised him

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Courtesy: A Love Supreme

Some of us are old enough to remember the red card protest. Others steadfastly refuse to look back in a revisionist way and say what a grand chap he was after all. And the luminary of British film who worshipped him? Read on …

Five years ago today, as safc.com has helpfully pointed out, Bob Murray – now Sir Bob – stood down as chairman of Sunderland AFC, handing power to Niall Quinn and the Drumaville consortium.

People’s memories, one way or the other, remain strong.

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Newcastle, Aston Villa and that shrinking feeling

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We had some lively banter here last week with Villa fans on the essentially unimportant matter of who supports the bigger club. See it here. At least Villans don’t live in a part of the West Midlands with such an alarmingly shrinking population as poor old Newcastle seems to have. But what on earth do they make of their club’s latest attempt to lure a world-class new manager? …

Having failed to secure the services of a manager who very nearly took his team down, Aston Villa are reported to be taking the process one logical step further.

The new Villa target is evidently Alex McLeish who got quite a lot right at Birmingham City – that great run in the 2009-2010 season, and winning the Carling Cup last season – but managed to get one rather important thing very wrong indeed.

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Calling warm, witty or wise QPR, Norwich & Swansea supporters

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Pauline McLynn, one of last season's volunteers

An invitation to supporters of the three teams promoted to the Premier League …

First of all, welcome to the Premier.

Don’t be intimidated by our 10th top finishing place. It was a decent achievement in itself but we went through a phase, as we tend to do most seasons in the top flight, when it was by no means certain we’d be playing you next season.

Now that we are all in it together, welcome also to Salut! Sunderland. Before each Sunderland game, we include in the build-up here an interview with a supporter of the opposing side.

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Len Shackleton: our clown, our genius … and more golden memories

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Close season seems a good time to be dipping gratefully into the archive. Here is a gem you may have missed, or rather the story surrounding it and the additional reminiscences it inspired. There are one or two links to follow but it is worth the effort …

It is not often that comments keep trickling in long after a posting has all but been forgotten, buried in the archives and popping up again only when someone does a specific Google search.

But there will be no surprise that it has happened with an article that appeared here last year, since the article was about Len Shackleton and was published not before the 10th anniversary of his death. The reason for returning to the Shack theme is simple: among the comments that were posted were three or four that added superbly to the fund of knowledge we have about one of the most gifted and also most eccentric players to grace the English game, better still in Sunderland colours.

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Salut’s week: Jordan and Liverpool, Todd and Derby, Villa and Wigan

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But no longer our future. Image: addick-tedKevin


Here is a digest of the week just gone by, as it was seen by Salut! Sunderland …

The week has been dominated by one issue: the sale of Jordan Henderson to Liverpool for £13m, £16m, £19.25m, £20m, money plus Ngog … you take your pick. Can’t the clubs simply be open about fees EVERY time there is a transfer, not just when it suits them? Why are some fees trumpeted, others “undisclosed” (though usually leaked in any case)? Answers on a postcard to Mr N Quinn.

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What does the chase for Martinez say about Aston Villa?

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There’s a large body of Villa supporters who are just up M Salut’s street: proper fans of a proper football club. In questioning what the interest in Roberto Martinez tells us about AVFC, our shady Birflatt Boy does not have them in mind, but the humourless, Houllier-than-thou self-delusionists who can express their allegiance only in terms of braying about what a big club they follow (and how much bigger they are than us) …

I wonder how Darren Bent is feeling now.

He left Sunderland for Aston Villa because according to him he was going to get the chance to play for a “top manager” with chances a plenty being created by their talented wide players Ashley Young and Stuart Downing. The Villa Park of mid June is looking a completely different place to the one that so bedazzled Bent in the cold January transfer window.

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Sunderland: having it both ways on transfers

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Monsieur Salut


Football clubs are notoriously sluggish when it comes to saying anything reliable about transfer news. Sometimes there is good reason for the reticence; often enough it’s just an extension of the culture of secrecy they love to develop.

Sunderland are no worse than others in this regard, and probably better than most.

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