West Bromwich Albion

Bruce’s Banter: West Brom disaster avoidance with ‘fighting spirit’

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Image: View from the Press Box

Yes it was a great fightback after a calamitous start. But two points were still dropped against a team we should expect to beat, maybe even comfortably, if our ability matches our ambition. The performance was much better in the end, but the results remain those of a candidate for relegation. But there were positives and Steve Bruce‘s post-match e-mail seizes on them …

Dear Colin,

Once we got back level I thought if there was one team that was going to win it, it would have been us.

When you get off to an horrendous start like that, you have to say well done to the lads for sticking with it and getting something.

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Salut!’s week: special Norwich, West Brom and Charlie Hurley edition

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The best of Salut! Sunderland‘s week – and often enough the worst – is summarised in this slot provided M Salut finds time do it. After what happened at Norwich, and in matters legal, it took one Baggie’s pre-match Q&A and another’s Charlie Hurley poem to make him find time this week …

Today, with all the stormwater that has swept under the bridge, a comprehensive review of what we’ve covered would be just too depressing.

If you want to read what Pete Sixsmith made of Norfolk before the match at Canary Road, that’s fine. Click here – Pete’s spirits were high at that point.

If you want to know what he thought of our performance, you must root around the site for yourselves. It would not be kind to post the link here, even though the piece was, as usual, well-written, intelligently argued and, in the circumstances, restrained.

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Bruce spot-on with Bramble; Bardsley needs a rocket too

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Is it a breach of Salut! Sunderland‘s policy of getting fully behind the Lads before matchday to support Steve Bruce’s comments on the Titus Bramble affair? I don’t think so.

Bramble has been suspended pending a club investigation into those aspects of the early-hours Yarm incident that concern club discipline. He therefore plays no part in the approach to West Brom at home tomorrow.

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The WBA ‘Who are You?’: is Charlie Hurley for sale?

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Salut! Sunderland rules are clear: as matchday approaches we set aside all carping and get 100 per cent behind the team. It is an important game for both clubs (seem to remember saying the same last season) and we are delighted to welcome David Walford*, a West Brom fan found for us by his SAFC-supporting neighbour Ken Gambles …

 

 
Salut! Sunderland:
Four defeats, one win and a draw so far and you’re second bottom of the league. But it was a tough start: do you feel optimistic or fear the worst from the season ahead?

All Albion fans are pessimists by nature so, of course, I fear the worst but would probably still do if we were top.

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Calling West Brom and Bolton fans: your wit and wisdom needed

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Albion 5Image: Tony Hisgett


An appeal to WBA and Bolton supporters with something to say to Salut! Sunderland …

Five games into the season, six if you include Brighton in the Carling, we’ve done OK so far with “Who are You?” interviews. But time has been a problem and, believe me, time is needed in order to find suitable – by which you can sometimes read “any” – candidates.

Last season, we did quite well with West Bromwich Albion and Bolton Wanderers, two of the teams we face in the coming few games. Both clubs can, for whatever reason, be tricky in terms of getting someone to sign up to the Q&A.

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Bruce in, Bruce out? Offering a hand to a drowning man

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Red & White in Black & WhiteMrs Logic captures the gloom


Later today, another Salut! Sunderland contributor will identify one glaring flaw in the Bruce Way (in fact it’s already up by accident so can stay!). One point in 24 undoubtedly leaves the club in crisis, one made all the more painful by memories of the false early-season promise. This site is open to other Sunderland supporters who wish to offer their considered views, as articles or in the Comments field. First, though, I wanted to get this off my chest …

By the sea in France. two hours or so after the final whistle at the Stadium of Light not so much put us out of our misery as plunged us into more, I played a minor part in pulling to safety a four-year-old girl who had fallen into the harbour.

When I say minor, I mean it. A younger, faster man was first to reach her and was able to lean over and grab her hand; I took the other.

It would take a hard man to draw any serious comparison between a child in danger of drowning and the game of football.

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West Brom Soapbox: where on earth do we go from here?

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Was yesterday the day we all finally lost patience? What is Ellis Short thinking now about the return on his hefty investment? Why in heaven’s name did we even think of letting Darren Bent go without having another striker lined up? How have good or expensive players suddenly become so clueless? Pete Sixsmith picks his way through the rubble of another disaster …

I once worked for a headteacher who, when things went wrong, would call meetings and ask us all to have a good look at ourselves and sort things out. Morale deteriorated, good teachers did things badly because the motivation wasn’t there and it looked like we would fail a forthcoming OFSTED inspection.

Then he left under a cloud and things got better.

A simple story, most of which is true and something which many people may think applies to Sunderland AFC and Steve Bruce this morning.

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