This is without doubt a big one for both clubs. Villa seriously need a win, we can pretty much secure survival and aim for a storming finish if only the right Sunderland can turn up. We’re fortunate to have a thoroughly level-headed Villa Park view from Kevin Hughes*, Monsieur Salut’s fellow-contributor at ESPN, with fascinating thoughts on Martin O’Neill and Darren Bent – I think he identifies two DBs and at least two MoNs – as well as on cheating, those “my club’s bigger than yours” squabbles and much more besides. Kevin predicts a draw …
Who Are You?
Sunderland v Everton ‘Who are You?’: on ‘Zinedine Kilbane and Reidy my boyhood hero’
Right, thrashing Toon was the easy part. Now for Everton. We call them a bogey team; they say they’re just better. Last season pretty much ended for SAFC with the FA cup exit in a Stadium of Light replay that was painful to watch after a good draw at Goodison. Earlier, we’d had the infamous Leon Osman fall-over-and-claim-a-pen routine that our friend Howard Webb fell-for-and-gave. That piece of odious cheating aside, Everton deserved their point on the day, were incontestably better in the cup replay and naturally won the Goodison league game with complete ease. Martin Fricker*, from the Daily Mirror, is a lifelong Everton fan. He fondly recalls Peter Reid and “Zinedine Kilbane”, has interesting thoughts on derby rivalries, wishes this game had happened before last Sunday but expects another draw …
Newcastle United v SAFC ‘Who are You?’: the Mag who’s cheered Sunderland
A warm welcome to readers new and old as derby day approaches. A “Who are You?” disappointment lies in store for committed tribal warriors. Our volunteer Mag is a man who sounds nothing like one. Clive Urquhart‘s family was driven from the North East by unemployment and poverty in the 1930s; they came from the right side of the Tyne, as we would see it, but carried with them the wrong allegiance. Like so many sons of North-eastern exiles, Clive embraced his father’s passion for football and also his sense of regional common purpose. He’s been known to cheer the odd Sunderland goal just as his dad made sure of being at Wembley to roar Raich Carter and his men to victory in 1937…
Chelsea v SAFC Who are You?: ‘PDC’s a gamble but you’ll stay up’
Paolo Di Canio takes Sunderland to Stamford Bridge on Sunday for a routine outing against the side that has just turfed Man Utd out of the FA Cup and has top four written all over it. Or will the fear of PDC make them all play as they did at Southampton? A baptism of fire for Di Canio, maybe, but no members of his squad will be under any illusions about how passionate to win he will expect them to be once kickoff comes. Del Oldfied* is a London cabbie and Chelsea nut. He thinks PDC’s appointment is risky but already thought we had “enough quality`” to stay up. That said, Del also expects us to face a confident bunch of Blues …
SAFC v Manchester United Who are You?: ‘feasting at Lord Ferg’s table’
Dom Raynor*, the editor of ESPNFC.com and therefore Monsieur Salut and Pete Sixsmith’s boss when Salut! Sunderland goes on tour to his pages, is also an avid Manchester United supporter who passes all sorts of arbitrary Salut tests of entitlement to follow this or that club. He studied in the North East so knows all about football in our region (well Darlo, anyway) and shares Sixer’s Rugby League passion. Dom talks about a Sir Alex genius in which stage boorishness and dewy eyes are part of the package, accepts the Poznan row was daft, worries about Martin O’Neill’s managership and drools over Cantona’s lob vs SAFC. Prepare for a cracking read (does that qualify me for a pay rise?) …
SAFC v Norwich ‘Who are You?’: snogging Martin Peters’s son, massaging Newcastle egos
Kate Sussams* is a Norwich lass with a grand turn of phrase, infectious humour and a warped view, doubtless formed by indoctrination as an exile on Tyneside, of the relative virtues and failings of Mags and Mackems. She thinks the world of Delia, and not just for her cooking, thinks Grant Holt should play for England and believes Sunderland’s never-say-die qualities will drive us on to a resounding, er, goalless draw against the Canaries on Sunday afternoon … ps anything that looks like a typo is either Norfolk dialect – or a typo
The QPR v SAFC Who are You?: ‘still going down but not Doomsday’
On his ski-ing holiday somewhere in Europe, our volunteer from the ranks of QPR supporters Matt Bell* will surely find some way of learning the outcome of Sunderland’s visit to Loftus Road on Saturday. Both clubs are on the slopes too, QPR fighting to climb from the foot of them amid modest hopes of a revival while we slip and slide as alarmingly as we’ve come to expect as part of the deal. Matt’s indulgent view on cheating knocks me sideways, though he doesn’t amplify it, but his resignation to relegation seems uncontroversial. I’m not sure we’d like what could be read into his tale of the brother who has no interest in football and thinks he’s a Sunderland supporter …
SAFC v Fulham ‘Who are You?’: forget prawn sandwiches, give us sushi and wine
Con Kondonis* is an Aussie, resident in the UK for 10 years or so, and an adopted but keen supporter of Fulham, our opponents at the Stadium of Light on Saturday. He has little time for cricket, loved Fulham’s European adventures, urges players to stop behaving like a bunch of softies, misses Danny Murphy, couldn’t give a hoot about Fayed’s Michael Jackson statue at Craven Cottage and would like to see sushi and wine replace meat pies and sausage rolls in football catering …
WBA v Sunderland ‘Who are You?’: happy Baggie salutes Cyrille & Bomber
The players have been sunning themselves and getting to know one another better in Dubai – some SAFC fans thought they should, on balance, have been made to do their bonding on Roker sands – but it’s back to football on Saturday. Salut! Sunderland is delighted to welcome another thoughtful opposing supporter, Nathan Carr*, who has told us all we need to know about West Bromwich Albion ahead of Sunderland’s visit to the Hawthorns. Nathan, who contributes to the BT Life’s A Pitch fanzone on the Baggies (see footnote for link), is spot-on with his remarks on Cyrille Regis and is also an understanding soul, as his defence of Liam Ridgewell – he of diving and toilet humour fame – shows …
SAFC v Arsenal ‘Who are You?’: on Giroud’s dive, real fans, football’s gentrification
Sam Limbert**, from onlinegooner.com shares with Andrew Mangan, writer of http://arseblog.com/, the task of commenting on Arsenal, our opponents at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, at ESPN’s club-by-club network. He is also a studious type, preparing his final-year university dissertation comparing football support and religion. His comments on the depth of the game’s relationship with Sunderland as a city is worth reading (they could apply to much of County Durham, too), but there’s also plenty to warm to in his responses to other questions. He even-handedly deplores diving (including one ’embarrassing’ recent piece of simulation by Olivier Giroud, a player we both admire), highly rates Steven Fletcher and Seb Larsson and, sad to relate, predicts a winning Gunners outcome …