Sunderland

Guess the Score by which Sunderland will beat Bournemouth and start the revival

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Jake: 'things must get better - and by that I don't mean only a narrower defeat'
Jake: ‘things must get better – and by that I don’t mean only a narrower defeat’

Monsieur Salut digs deep yet again – and promises to keep up the selective double-prize offer until Sunderland finally win a Premier League game …

Honest, I swear I kept a straight face while writing that headline.

No, I am not any more confident than the next sufferer. But Sunderland have to win some time – a Newcastle United fan reminds me that when Derby went down with 11 points, their solitary victory was 1-0 versus the Mags – and Saturday, before my own eyes, wold be a great place for it to happen.

So I will maintain the discriminatory approach to the prize: until Sunderland finally win, the winner of Guess the Score, ie the first to predict the eventual scoreline, will qualify for not one but two mugs if opting for a SAFC victory.

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A Liverpool view of Sunderland’s collapse (sorry Mr Moyes) versus Arsenal

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1992 and all that: Nathalie in red, her dad in, er, a gruesome away top
1992 and all that: Nathalie in red, her dad in, er, a gruesome away top

Monsieur Salut writes: there’s one thing that makes having an otherwise disloyal Liverpool-supporting daughter feel a little less shaming (it had something to do with John Barnes being an early crush, I suspect). Nathalie Randall does also have some affection for Sunderland, having been dragged to Roker Park, the SoL and elsewhere by her dad over the years This was her assessment of the Arsenal game – and sorry David Moyes, but collapse is what is was. Just another view, but interesting that she felt Didier Ndong was our best player (I gave him 5/10 at ESPN) …

Winless Sunderland plunged to another defeat in the Premier League, this time to high-flying Arsenal, starting started well with the passion and intense pressure that helped keep them up last season, but also showing a distinct lack of creativity and quality with often the cross or final ball.

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Arsenal Guess the Score: double prize for winning entry predicting SAFC victory

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Jake: 'here's one I made earlier'
Jake: ‘here’s one I made earlier’

Monsieur Salut briefly forgets how poor he feels just now and digs ever deeper in a desperate attempt to inspire a Sunderland win …

What could possibly be better than winning a prize mug from Salut! Sunderland? Right first time: two prize mugs. And what could possibly be a safer bet than to offer any prize at all that depends on a Sunderland win? Answers on a postcard to Mr D Moyes c/o the Stadium of Light, Millennium Way, Sunderland, SR5 1SU.

Most of our loyal army of optimists went for a Sunderland win at Southampton. No one correctly predicted a 1-0 defeat.

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Lee Clark. ‘My mistake: not the t-shirt but leaving Newcastle for Sunderland’

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Lee
Hero and villain

Only Peter Reid and Lee Clark, and perhaps whoever served them at the Yarm Country Club, know for sure whether it really took five shared bottles of champagne to persuade the Wallsend-born midfielder to join Sunderland from his beloved Newcastle United.

That is what I recall Reid saying happened in an interview at the time. But whatever the truth of the 1997 booze-up recruitment meeting, it will come as little surprise to Sunderland supporters that Clark now regards the move as a mistake.

Having helped us to promotion, he then chose to wear a t-shirt bearing the slogan “Sad Mackem Bastards” at the 1999 FA Cup final, which he attended as a NUFC fan (they lost to Man Utd).

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West Ham Who are You?: ‘SAFC doomed, Hammers must solve stadium issues’

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David
David Blackmore: ‘sorry but SAFC will be bottom until May’

West Ham have been in disarray, hardly on our scale but bad enough with a poor start to the season and lots of unhappiness about the London Stadium. Who better to ask about all this than David Blackmore*, editor of Blowing Bubbles (Twitter: https://twitter.com/WestHamMagazine. He thinks the club will eventually get it right on both counts – but fears for our Premier League;’s tenure …

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Moyes on the Boyes at Stoke: right to feel SAFC deserved more, or deluded?

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Moyes On The Boys

To many of us who, one way or the other, saw the 2-0 defeat at Stoke City, this was a Sunderland display that insulted those occupying another sell-out away end and suggested the record for the lowest number of Premier League points, currently 11 and held by Derby County, will be returning to Wearside. For David Moyes, however, it was a game we ought to have taken a point from. Mmm. Consider his post-match e-mail to Monsieur Salut and a few others ..

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