Prepare for more pain. The beatings will continue until morale improves. After a night when Sunderland collectively expressed a Premier status death wish or – if you prefer – gave a new definition to the notion of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, we have the customary sets of player ratings. First up is Rob Hutchison, with his quirky one-worders and marks averaging 5 out of 10 for the starting line-up. Keir Bradwell’s wordier condemnation is at https://safc.blog/2015/02/masochism-2-sunderlands-player-ratings-vs-qpr-worse-than-norwich-away/ …
Malcolm Dawson writes……When I was a kid I watched the FA Cup Final on TV religiously. It was virtually the only live televised football available to those of us growing up in the fifties and sixties.
Years later I could still have told you every result and every goalscorer between 1959 and 1978, but I’m not so sure I could now.
Jake thought he had ways of making them talk STOP PRESS – Within an hour or so of this going live QPR fans were quick to step into the breach described in the introduction. Thanks to JC and Josh (and any others waiting in the wings) for promptly filling the gap.
All seemed in order when Monsieur Salut went off to Cuba. A QPR fan, who had long ago volunteered to do the Who are You? interview, had the questions and promised replies. Thinking only of the transfer window and intervening results, I told the interviewee, Gareth Parker, to take his time as ‘things – and therefore your answers – will change between now and Feb 10-ish’. I was not thinking of ‘Arry’s dodgy knees (M Salut knows all about those) and I certainly wasn’t implying that the answers could wait until after the game.
But despite returning from holiday to an email suggesting some revised post-Redknapp questions, which I duly sent last Friday, Gareth has remained silent.
If any QPR fans fancy answering in his place, just go to Comments, specify the question number and give your reply. If there is a good response – and that’s a big if, given how close we are to the game – we’ll come up with a prize.
And apologies to all readers who enjoy this series for this one lapse. I am sure Gareth either overlooked it of has a perfectly good reason for not being able to oblige. We should, however, have a cracker for the Bradford City cup game …
Nick Sharkey: with thanks to the Sunderland Former Players’ Association*
Nick Sharkey, a prolific scorer for Sunderland in the 1960s and by all accounts a terrific man, has died at the age of 71. Salut! Sunderland extends deep sympathy to his family and friends.
SAFC.com puts it like this: “The Scot scored 62 goals in 117 appearances for Sunderland during the early to mid Sixties and was an active, prominent and extremely popular member of the Sunderland Former Players’ Association*.”
Jake: have your say on Keir’s assessments , then guess tomorrow night’s score
Apologies to all for pulling these two items together, a necessity given constraints on time between the two games, at Swansea on Saturday and at home to QPR tomorrow. Agree or disagree with Keir Bradwell’s man-by-man ratings from the 1-1 draw at the Liberty Stadium and then have a stab at the scoreline in tomorrow’s crucial game…
The big mystery of the day is this: did Pete Sixsmith go to Swansea after all? A very late Sixer’s Seven – “Back across Offa’s Dyke with a point” – suggests he may have done. Only time will tell. BUT here’s how Rob Hutchison saw it, player by player, in a word and a mark out of 10 for each …
Monsieur Salut returns from Revolutionary Road, a two-week tour of Cuba including a two-hour trek to the mountainside rebel headquarters of Fidel Castro, full of admiration for the two wins recorded in his absence and the splendid efforts of Salut! Sunderland comrades to keep the site buzzing. Sixer ducked the 700-mile round trip to Swansea and missed a useful 1-1 draw, with Jermain Defoe’s excellent 40th minute opener raising hopes of victory until a second-half diving header from, perhaps inevitably, Ki. Alvarez might have won a penalty when he seemed to be tripped early in the second half, and 2-0 at that stage would have surely have been enough to secure three points. From then on, there was little else to cheer, beyond a solid defensive display in which John O’Shea was outstanding, as Swansea gradually took control for the remainder of the game. A good point, though, and an encouraging return to the Liberty for Danny Graham. Think what wonders a winner against QPR on Tuesday night would do for him and for us. Our illustrator Jake provides the substitute seven-worder you see below …
Jake provides today’s seven-word verdict in Sixer’s absence
As a decent FA Cup run beckons for someone, we welcome back Russ Goldman*, a USA-based Fulham diehard adjusting to life without Premier League football and therefore without access to live televised games. Like SAFC, Fulham offer radio coverage – Barnes and Benno are a class act for us – but Russ admits it’s not the same (he should try wrestling with stop-start streams, which make Barnes and Benno an emphatically better option). He sees Sunderland advancing to the 5th round but not without a fight ….
As regulars know, or should know, a rollover stops at two at Salut! Sunderland. We don’t want to annoy our sponsors, Personalised Football Gifts by having them pack threes and fours.
But just in case we do get back to Wembley this season wouldn’t it be nice to have that pair of mugs as souvenirs of the 4th round?
No Pete Sixsmith at White Hart Lane. The early starts for the Durham branch bus, the cost of a pint in London and the limited prospects of seeing Sunderland raise their game have done for him and trips to most matches in the capital. Monsieur Salut – ticket for WHL burning a hole in his wallet after work intervened – has learned not to count on the excellent but lesser spotted Bob Chapman, which almost certainly means we’ll see a report from him, too, this time. A place awaits you, Bob! Step forward our one-word ratings man Rob Hutchison, who worried about the 3-5-2 system, feared the worst as Spurs gobbled up possession and peppered our goal with efforts and ended up disappointed we hadn’t taken gilt-edged chances that nevertheless came our way. But he’s happy with Jermain Defoe’s arrival…
