Sunderland

Leicester City Who are You?: ‘I like Catts but you’re doomed with Norwich and Bournemouth’

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Sometimes, Who are You? interviewees bend over backwards to please, offering upbeat predictions for Sunderland’s season that even we wouldn’t share. Not Ben Jacobs*, another of Monsieur Salut’s ESPN FC colleagues but also a busy sports broadcaster and journalist in the Middle East. A passionate Leicester supporter, and first in the WAY hot seat for the new Premier season, he makes due apology, but forecasts an end to our top-flight stay. What’s worrying is that he comes across – with fascinating views on football cheats, Qatar as 2022 World Cup hosts and Foxes management issues – as knowledgeable!…

Jake: check out the Who are You? series at
Jake: check out last season’s Who are You? stars at https://safc.blog/category/who-are-you-2014-2015/

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Leicester City v Sunderland Guess the Score. Or maybe Guess the Team

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Jake kicks off a new season of the Guess the Score
Jake kicks off a new season of Guess the Score


The beautiful game, with all those blemishes the heaviest make-up cannot conceal, is back. There may still be a Test series going on, and loads of people are on holiday or have holidays still to take, but football won’t wait.

And that means, at Salut! Sunderland, the return of Guess the Score. Let’s have a bumper entry for the opening game versus Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.

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Life after Wickham, for better or worse

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Jake's take
Jake’s take


For Monsieur Salut’s latest piece for ESPN FC, the victory in Hannover took second place to the more immediate news of Connor Wickham’s move to Crystal Palace being confirmed.

I am in two minds about his departure. There is clearly a good player struggling to break out of the not-so-good one Sunderland fans have too often seen. Wickham worked hard out wide last season, a role he would not have chosen for himself, and he also suffered when used as a frontman from the same lack of viable service that had bedevilled Sunderland’s play for seasons.

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Sixer’s Travels: Mandron hits two more in Boston, Lens prepares Doncaster debut

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Pete Sixsmith isn’t envious of those who followed Sunderland’s pre-season tour, Ha’way Out West. After all, he’s had his share of exotic travel, too, rounding it all off with the Doncaster first-team friendly tonight …

... about only going to NW Durham, Lincs & S Yorkshire
… about only going to NW Durham and Lincolnshire


The first team went to California and Ontario; the Development Squad had to make do with Consett and Boston – the one in Lincolnshire, not the one in Massachusetts. It was a evening out in a town that is going through many changes.

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George Pitcher: the Geordie a Tunisian waiter learned to call ‘Sunderland’

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George Pitcher
George Pitcher, on his last holiday, in Tunisia

Last December, we reported the death of an electronic friend, a fellow-Sunderland supporter known from the Blackcats e-mail forum for both his allegiance to our club and his sharp wit. George Pitcher‘s widow, Kathy, now feels able to share a little more about the life of the Newcastle-born, Sunderland-mad man she loved – the ‘red sheep’ of the family as he put it himself – starting with an illustration of George’s passion for the game and mention of another tragedy that struck the family in the same year his own illness was diagnosed …

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Advochaat on the importance of Jermain’s two goals to beat Toronto

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The return of Advocaat. Dick, by Jake
The return of Advocaat. Dick, by Jake

The bare bones of it, courtesy of safc.com, are that Sunderland beat Toronto with a Jermain Defoe double after his former club took the lead: ‘two well-taken efforts … the first, in the 65th minute, reward for Defoe’s persistence in a scramble on the edge of the area, the second four minutes later after of a flowing counter-attack led by Adam Johnson’. And no battle royal with Jozy Altidore, who did not play. Dick Advocaat was happy for the fans and for Defoe, as his post-match email shows. Much coverage and photos to come – and yes, the players acknowledged the support …

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