Sunderland Reserves 2 Everton Reserves 0. Take away the R word and that’s the sort of scoreline we can really enjoy.
But it was the Reserves, of course; all the same, they deserve a hearty pat on the back for a good home win that puts them top of the league.
A few days ahead of Arsenal v SAFC, 5-0 against Orient has an ominous ring to it. Has life picked up again for the Gunners at just the wrong time for us? Our Arsenal previewer, the infuriatingly prolific writer, actor and broadcaster Tom Watt* certainly sounds like an optimist.
When it comes to soaps, I’m more Coronation Street – absurd storylines and all – than EastEnders. So I’d forgotten that Tom played Lofty Holloway for three years. I did recall, however, that he was a likeable phone-in host in earlier days of TalkSport – and a committed G*****. Read on – and his replies do make for an excellent, provocative read – to see why he’ll be pleased with that spot of censorship. And don’t call him a fan either …
Salut! Sunderland:
Oh dear. If you need a fillip after the bitter disappointment of Wembley, you have to look no further than the fixture list showing Sunderland as next up in the Premier. Home banker?
I don’t know about that. It is far more important than a fillip to be honest. The disappointment of Wembley means the next fixture becomes probably the single most important game of the season. If we beat Sunderland we are still in with a fantastic chance of winning the league whereas anything less than a win could make that unachievable.
Right: a busy run-up to Arsenal at Saturday lies in prospect with at least two Who are You? features lined up. A good time, then, to let Pete Sixsmith get a few things off his chest about the state of modern football …
It’s a bright and breezy Wednesday and I have spent the day with ten 16-year-olds while suffering from a cold that has made me feel that my head is in a vice.
The papers and the internet are full of the usual Ferguson complaints about referees and there are pics of the incredibly smug Frank Lampard banging in the winning penalty at Stamford Bridge last night.
Steve Bruce has talked up the performances of Asamoah Gyan and, in particular, his adaptability to the role of solitary striker.
He makes it sound almost like something we’d planned all along.
That’s the year
when Steve Bruce’s newly extended contract runs out.
At a time when a painstakingly detailed report on the Sunderland business model has just appeared (see below), it is not impertinent to wonder aloud where he will be then, and indeed where SAFC will find themselves.
If Bruce does well, returning to where we left off before the present run of defeats began, the risk is that another club – if not a post-Fergie Manchester United, then someone else – will come in to lure him away.
Managers, like players, can change allegiance at the drop of a hat provided the hat contains enough dosh or professional promise (just as there is no such thing as loyalty from club to them).
And if the decline worsens and we end up, despite all that Ellis Short money we’ve spent, hovering just above the relegation zone in an incredibly tight division, or a prolonged slump extends into next season, that absence of loyalty from clubs to their staff could see Mr Bruce on his bike out of the place.
Is there a cushier tie in the Everton fixture list than Sunderland at home? Will Jermaine Beckford score two against anyone else at this level? How worried should we be after a gutless surrender bringing the losing streak to four, with three tough games to come? Pete Sixsmith joins up the dots to offer some thoughts …
My first visit to Goodison Park was in January 1966 for a Fourth Round FA Cup tie (which kicked off at 3pm along with the other 15 games that day).
I travelled on a coach from Shildon with, if memory serves me correctly, Phil Younghusband and Robert Newton. It was an uncomfortable day in the footballing cathedral that housed England’s then finest team as we lost 3-0 mostly due to turning in a performance that I would have described as supine had I known that word then.
Forty five years on, some things have changed and some haven’t. Phil and Robert have long departed the North East, Everton are no longer among England’s elite and to describe Goodison as a cathedral would be akin to saying that North Africa is a haven of peace and political stability.
I am, however, still travelling by coach and, more relevantly, witnessing performances that make me continue to use the word supine and question why on earth I part with hard earned money to watch utter dross like this.
To say the season is beginning to crumble away would be an understatement, and Steve Bruce knows it. Second best …
Whether Sunderland deserve a quick post-match report is frankly in doubt.
But one exchange from BBC Radio Newcastle’s live coverage seemed to sum it up rather well. It went a little like this:
Gary Bennett: “How could Ferdinand be muscled off the ball like that by Arteta?’
Nicky Barnes: “I don’t know what he thought he was doing there.”
Bennett: “I don’t know what he thinks he’s been doing all afternoon.”
Starting at Goodison, and a fourth successive defeat after defending he said “would shame the Northern League”, Pete Sixsmith presents …
The latest of our occasional looks back at the week just gone, with links in case you missed items the first time round and want to explore further. Click on the titles to see the postings in full …
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