Sunderland

Sixer’s Sevens: Burnley beckons after comfortable win at Accrington Stanley

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Jake: ‘Sixer (or his sub) does it in seven words, no more, no less – unless he miscounts’

Malcolm Dawson writes….circumstances meant I couldn’t get to Accrington this evening, which is a shame because despite the rain and the abandoned game on my last visit, this together with Rochdale, is one of the venues I was really looking forward to revisiting this year. And presumably the Stanley Chairman is still miffed with Stewart Donald as I couldn’t even pay to watch a live stream via safsee. So it was Barnes and Benno for me, accompanied by the Lancashire burr of a couple of ladies sitting immediately in front of the commentary position. 

Benno was certainly feeling more upbeat at halftime than he has been recently, and so was Pete Sixsmith, whose half time 7 read “comfortable first half with an improved performance.” Only one goal to show at the break, but at least it was in our favour this time.

One goal of course, is often never enough and as Pete’s second text said “one all after stupid penalty given away” brought a much more familiar scoreline. Aiden McGeady however obviously hadn’t read the script and put us back in front to no surprise for one of the two ladies who confessed to the listening audience “that’s why I said ‘s***’ when he came on” while Pete’s update read “wonderful goal by McGeady“. With time running out and me wondering if we might have to endure a penalty shoot out, Charlie Wyke stuck in a third and that was that. 

Pete will be dusting down his soapbox and filing his match report tomorrow but for now make do with his full time summary in just seven words.

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Accrington Stanley vs Sunderland: victory would boost confidence for the Pompey test

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Jake: ‘Pkmoey’s the bigger game, but a win here would be nice’

The invitation to supporters of our Carabao Cup opponents, Accrington Stanley, to answer a few questions from Salut! Sunderland has received more or less the response we might have expected.

Not one of the hardy souls who follow “the club that wouldn’t die” has taken us up on the offer.

The questions are repeated below in case there is more enthusiasm with the game being that much closer. There isn’t much to update; Stanley’s first home game of the season was suspended because of the continuing crisis at the intended opponents, Bury, so they remain pointless.

Another invitation – to supporters of Sunderland and Ipswich to predict the outcome of Saturday’s game at Portman Road fared better.

The absence of a prize did not deter readers and the posting attracted a healthy 18 responses, though not all were entries. David Miller correctly forecast 1-1 and is probably cursing Salut! Sunderland for making it a prizeless edition.

Let’s have another go, once again for fun. Do we care too much about a league cup game? Well, clearly not as much we care about Saturday’s tough league match at home to Portsmouth, who beat us twice last season as we played each other five times (including the Checkatrade final and the play-off semis). But for those of us who want Sunderland to win every game, a strong and successful performance at the tiny Wham stadium would be welcome – and do no harm to confidence after our less than resounding start to the season.

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Accrington Stanley vs Sunderland: giving a voice to Stanley fans

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Jake: ‘the League Cup – an opportunity or a nuisance?’

Salut! Sunderland maintains its idle hands new approach to the traditional Who are You? exercise ahead of Tuesday night’s visit to Accrington Stanley in the Carabao Cup (League Cup still sounds better).

Accordingly, rather than go out a search for a winning interviewee, a task that proved desperately hard last season, a shortened version of the questions we have previously asked appears below and we invite Stanley fans to respond to any or all of them in the Comments below.

This method worked excellently for yesterday’s league game at Ipswich, as acknowledged by our deputy editor Malcolm Dawson, but less well for the opener against Oxford United. Stanley’s small fan base makes a bumper response to this post unlikely but we’d love to be proved wrong. It’s your chance to have your say about your club; it means as much to you as ours does to us …

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Ipswich Town vs Sunderland: would a win silence the doubters?

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Jake: ‘the mean sod has withdrawn the prize for this week’

Football fans are not known especially for their powers of measured reflection, that ability to take a realistic view rather than jump in at the first opportunity with both feet raised. Or so says Monsieur Salut.

Accordingly, the Ross Out chorus has begun. We’ve played all of one game. There are 45 to go in the league alone. We played badly by all accounts and questions have been raised about the team selection. All the same, as I said at Twitter while acknowledging that disdain for the manager is not purely a kneejerk reaction to the opening-day failure to beat modest opposition, calling for his head now is the sort of thing that takes us into laughing stock territory.

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Ipswich fans. Your chance to tell us all about yourselves – and Sunderland

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Jake: ‘a good one to win’

A couple of responses from Oxford fans ahead of Sunderland’s opening game hardly counts as a storming start to the labour-saving device of inviting opposing fans to send their thoughts on forthcoming matches between our clubs.

But let’s persevere, says Monsieur Salut. We’ve had good Ipswich Town Q+A interviews in the past and must hope a few Tractor Boys (or girls) feel inclined to answer one or more, or indeed all, of the questions below.

If this lazy version of our superb Who are You? series works, there’ll be the usual prizes at the end of the season for the best interviews. We’ll see …

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Sunderland, Portsmouth, Ipswich, Peterborough, Rotherham and Doncaster – the League One top six?

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John McCormick,  writes: our ‘who to follow’ poll remained quiet, although the trickle of votes that came in over the last week did result in some changes. Sunderland and Portsmouth are clear leaders, with not much between them, after which we have Ipswich, Rotherham and Peterborough. Then come Doncaster, who edged ahead of Coventry, followed at a distance by Lincoln and Burton.

I did expect Blackpool to do better but our site appears to have attracted few of their fans. Their season tickets had reached 4,818, when I last checked, so there’s obviously life returning to this once-troubled club. That’s about twice the number sold by Coventry, whose own troubles are nowhere being resolved and who slipped out of our top six after Doncaster Rovers gained a few votes. A third troubled club, Bolton Wanderers, who might or might not be sold by the time this post goes live, also didn’t do too badly and finished in the top half of the table. I don’t know how they’ll do that with only 7 first team players but what do I know about football?

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Sunderland vs Oxford United: the sound of silence

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Jake: let’s get off to a winning start


Well that went down well. Our cheeky attempt to draw some thoughts from Oxford United supporters ahead of Saturday’s opening League One game at the Stadium of Light, fell on deaf ears.

Charlie Methven, Sunderland executive director but also a fervent Oxford United fan, has spoken on these pages of the passion his fellow supporters feel for their club. So we will give it one more try. If you support Oxford and feel like answering one or more of the questions below, just post a comment and specify the number/s of the question/s (one to seven) to which you are responding …

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Sunderland vs Oxford, goals (secretly) galore and a fond farewell from Bryan Oviedo

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The goals we wanted finally came – and no fans were there to witness them, says Monsieur Salut. Our new striker Marc McNulty grabbed a confidence-boosting hat-trick and one apiece from Aiden McGeady and Chris Maguire gave Sunderland a 5-2 win over Hartlepool.

I could find no trace of this on the club site – the game was played in private (behind closed doors seems a daft phrase when applied to the Academy of Light) – but you’ll find a brief account at the Sunderland Echo site.

And now – while bidding farewell to Bryan Oviedo, off the payroll with a move to the Danish top-flight side FC Copenhagen (he goes with our thanks and good wishes, reciprocated above) – on to the real business. Tell us how you think SAFC will fare in Saturday’s League One opener against Oxford United.

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An invitation to Oxford United supporters ahead of the League One opener at Sunderland

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It began more than 11 years ago as Who are They? and evolved quickly into Who are You?, Salut Sunderland‘s series of interviews with fans of each of Sunderland’s opposing clubs. We’ve had the famous and the not-so-famous, creating a rich archive of often quite outstanding features. There have been few gaps and those that have occurred did so mostly because supporters who promised to answer our questions failed in the end, for whatever reasons, to deliver.

All good things come to an end, however. The business of finding willing fans, pinning them down and getting the interviews published can be complicated and is usually time-consuming. The resulting readership figures do not always justify our efforts or those of the interviewees.

We shall start this season with a rough-and-ready replacement. A shorter list of questions will be posted here before each game and the fans of each club due to face Sunderland will be invited to answer.

If the idea works, we will maintain the annual HAWAY (Highly Articulated Who Are You?) awards for the best sets of answers. If it doesn’t, it will be quietly dropped. Salut! Sunderland thanks the army of opposition fans who made the series something of which we and they can be reasonably proud.

And here are the questions for Oxford United fans. Don’t worry if your responses fail to appear as soon as sent; an anti-spam device means comments submitted by visitors who have not done so in the past are held briefly for moderation …

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Heerenveen today, gone tomorrow. Now for Sunderland goals to flow

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Monsieur Salut, adapted by Jake from Matt’s cartoon

Stop Press: a 5-2 win against Hartlepool – three goals from McNulty and one each from McGeady and Maguire.
And Bryan Oviedo is off the wage bill with a move to the FC Copenhagen in the Danish Superliga ….. good luck, Bryan

Sunderland may yet score before the season starts, hopes Monsieur Salut. Fittingly, no one will be there to see it.

After the 1-0 defeat to the Dutch top-flight side Heerenveen, only a week remains before the League One season kicks off with a home game against our owner and executive director’s team of choice, Oxford United.

But at least our goal shy Lads have a chance to boost morale a little with a behind-closed-doors final friendly of the pre-season, versus Hartlepool United on Monday. Yes, we know these games are about fitness more than results but it would do no harm to hear we’d actually hit the back of the net.

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