Some of you will have seen the various options Pete Sixsmith, having endured Sunderland vs Crystal Palace, offered for his customary seven-word verdict. Here, for the non-squeamish, is his fuller appraisal of our latest surrender …
Rob Hutchison shows commendable diligence after a gut-wrenching non-performance to offer his one- word player ratings with about 100 times more pace and application than Sunderland mustered all afternoon …
Monsieur Salut writes: After a drab first half, Pete Sixsmith saw “nothing much between these two average sides”. Inevitably, Palace came out after half time and showed one difference, a quick goal. Less inevitably, but maybe not so surprising to the longest suffering of football fans anywhere, three more came to complete a 13-minute collapse to rival the earlier surrenders to Southampton and Villa. We did start playing somewhere near the 90th minute, but Palace might have been six up by then. There were men out there today, led by John O’Shea but including some who might otherwise have expected to play on at the top level for several years, who ought to be down the Job Centre on Monday to explore other career possibilities. Come back for Sixer’s fuller report – once again he offers a selection of seven-word verdicts below – but don’t necessarily expect anyone at Salut! Sunderland to show more than O’Shea-like pace to get it posted …’
We’ve tried our best to be busy in the aftermath of a fifth successive Wear-Tyne-Wear derby win, and in the build-up to Saturday’s equally important game at home to Crystal Palace. See the home page – salutsunderland.com – and you can find analysis, comment and wit galore, on both topics.
About the Palace game, I have said at ESPN that this is a golden opportunity to reinforce our survival hopes, us at home in a tough but winnable match while all the other strugglers have nominally trickier games whether home or away. I also say it was time for the players to repay and reciprocate the love for SAFC that Niall Quinn talked about on derby weekend.
Kellie Shirley‘s public may know her best as Carly Wicks from Eastenders but she’s been in so much more, from Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and The Office to Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky with lots of stage work, too, at the Royal National Theatre and Royal Court. If you have watched Soccer AM and listened to TalkSport, you may know Kellie is also a passionate Crystal Palace fan. Read more about her work below*; she’s heavily involved in charity work, campaigning for Mencap and acting as patron (with Richard Wilson, aka Victor Meldrew, who should support Greenock Morton – and did until he got sucked into brand allegiance to Man Utd) to a dance group for disabled young people. We’re delighted to welcome her to the ‘Who are You?’ hot seat …
So we have the regional bragging rights again and, more important to me, three precious points.
But beating an abysmal Newcastle United team is no more than a confidence-boosting warm-up for the potentially far greater task of grabbing another vital win, this time at home to Crystal Palace.
A Newcastle United fan with huge YouTube and Twitter followings lets rip after Sunday. No one offended by bad language should click on the link to four minutes and 42 seconds of bile aimed not at us but at his own manager and team. 106,310 people had done so as I started posting this.
We probably need a psychiatrist to decipher Keir Bradwell‘s comment on Connor Wickham. Otherwise his marks go pretty much as you’d expect, with plaudits all round and special mention for an “all right goal”. Newcastle’s star man? Monsieur Salut! is tempted to say Tim Krul for his spontaneous act of sportsmanship, patting Defoe on the back in the tunnel at half time for a super strike, and managing to annoy Jamie ‘you can’t do that in any game, especially a derby’ Carragher in the process. Let’s more Spirit of Krul, less Snarl of Carragher ….
Yes, everyone will remember Jermain Defoe’s goal-of-the-season contender. Tim Krul will especially remember it, having been rubbished by an infantile lynch mob led by Jamie Carragher for his sportsmanlike gesture of congratulation in the tunnel at half time.
But spare some thoughts, too, for Billy Jones and William Cowell.
Pete Sixsmith witnesses a good, solid performance with more than a hint of Dick Advocaat’s ‘win ugly’ strategy but also a goal of the utmost quality. This was the sort of display that will, if maintained, keep the crowd on the players’ side and secure the necessary points before those dreaded final trips to the Emirates and Stamford Brdige …
