Wigan Athletic

Steve Bruce: no time for tantrums

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Thanks to Bernard Platt, Wigan Athletic AFC & This Northern Soul


We’ll take a long time getting round to it, but the question is simple enough: what possible interest was served by Steve Bruce refusing, if the reports are correct, to attend the post-match press conference? …

Salut! Sunderland supports Sunderland AFC with absolute passion. It was created by a journalist who started his career in the North East and later moved to Fleet Street (though he has also spent thousands of pounds and devoted countless hours to following the club since boyhood).

None of that will ever stop this site criticising SAFC when criticism seems merited, or criticising the press when that is merited, too.

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The Wigan Soapbox: winning, whisky and a Villa wind-up

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Slump is over, but at what cost? That is another of Pete Sixsmith‘s seven-word verdicts, one he reached after reflecting on the immensely gratifying win over Wigan, three of our four goals coming after the club’s roster of fit senior strikers had finally reached zero. The injury list lengthens but the darks clouds are beginning to disperse. And where do Aston Villa come into this? Nowhere in truth; Pete just feels they need bringing down a peg or two after all the Bent-came-to-us-because-we’re-a-bigger club bragging …

I would imagine that 39,000 fans and the entire workforce at the Stadium of Light had a warm and rosy glow about them on Saturday night. I certainly did, thanks to the much needed and richly deserved 4-2 win and a couple of snifters of Baillie Nichol Jarvie, just about the finest blended Scotch I have ever come across. I wholeheartedly recommend both the win and the whisky.

The BNJ (as we Scotch aficionados call it) is a light coloured drink, with a sweet taste – but you’re not really interested in that are you? You want a rundown of the day the magic carpet ride got back on the rails don’t you. So, here goes and I promise not to mix my metaphors as crudely as in the previous sentence.

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A win at last: the Wigan game in quotes

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Sunday’s a day of rest, especially after you’ve won for the first time since Jan 22. Pete Sixsmith‘s analysis will appear tomorrow. Please feel free to add your own quotes to these …

Steve Bruce:

“I have to say a big thank you to the supporters. They were magnificent and played their part from the first whistle to the last.”

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SAFC (0) 4 Wigan Athletic (0) 2: wounded warriors triumph

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Steve Bruce has bleated so much about injuries that some of us have tired of just one more excuse. Today, he had reason to raise his eyes to the heavens and ask whether someone up there has it in for him: three injuries that might have knocked the stuffing out of any team. Ours responded magnificently and ran out clear winners to make it extremely unlikely that we’ll be worried about relegation come the last week or two of the season …

It looked bad when Phil Bardsley, a strong candidate for the player of a flat season, was carried off on a stretcher. It got worse when Danny Welbeck suffered a recurrence of the hamstring injury, raising questions about how quickly he had been brought back after the last one.

Then Wigan scored. A goal from nowhere but leaving us fearing the worst.

Luckily, by the time Asamoah Gyan did his hamstring too, he’d equalised.

And what happened next was the stuff of dreams.

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Salut! week: Birmingham woes, sadness for Fraizer (except in Hull)

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This is the weekly digest of what has been going on at Salut! Sunderland for readers in a hurry. It started as most weeks do these days, scratching heads and pointing fingers after one more defeat to add to our growing collection. But there’s been much, more more …

There has not been much to cheer us up of late. So you may wish to skip all the navel-gazing that went on after the 2-0 defeat at St Andrew’s, when we were simply unable to turn our dominance for much of the game into a goal or two.

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SAFC v Wigan Athletic: we knew Bernard would have his say

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Thanks to Bernard Platt, Wigan Athletic AFC & This Northern Soul

Bernard Ramsdale, as is well enough known around here, has long been among our favourite opposing supporters, and romped to victory in our first “Who are You” awards. He formerly ran the Latics’ fan site Ye Olde Tree and Crown. Now, he is a key part of the team behind the excellent This Northern Soul, bringing together like-minded, Wigan-supporting sites. This is his preview of tomorrow’s match, so important to both clubs, reproduced from TNS with Bernard’s consent (he asked for a guaranteed three points in lieu of payment and I’m hoping Steve Bruce can make my polite refusal come true) …

Wigan Athletic head to the North East this weekend where they will lock horns once again with their former manager Steve Bruce, who despite shopping at Harrods is heading for the bargain bucket at “Discount Daisy’s”. Roberto Martinez will be hoping for his first ever set of back to back victories whilst Bruce will be hoping to finally beat Martinez in a competitive game for the first time. Something’s got to give!

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Wigan ‘Who are You?’: eating pies, fighting relegation, hailing Three Amigos

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We’re going early with this week’s “Who are You?”. It would be easy to say this was because it is such an important match that it was high time to stop carping about what has made it so. The more humdrum reason: I’m away in Italy today and will have my work cut out on Thursday. My thanks to Kieran Heapy, otherwise known as HeapyLatic on Wigan Athletic sites – including his own, Pie Eaters Footie* and the one through which we found him, This Northern Soul – for saving poor old Salut! Sunderland award-winning Bernard Ramsdale from having to do it again for the umpteenth time …

Salut! Sunderland: I hoped the tone of this question would have needed changing after last weekend, but not so. Can there be any Premier team you’d rather have to play than us just now?

It would be Blackpool, even though we have just played them, they are the team that are currently on the slide. They look very much like Burnley did last season, started well but second half of the season they have been found out and teams can stop them playing. Saying that you still have to be on top of the game, there really haven’t been any easy games this season, and any win has to be very well fought for.

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Darren Bent, the curse of the ‘calculated gamble’ and a Stoke ps

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Missing your goals

At some stage this week, we need to stop banging on about how to apportion blame for an atrocious run that has taken Sunderland from the fringes of European competition to the bleak familiarity of a relegation scrap.

We need to get behind the team, whatever some may think about its leadership, and provide encouragement for the home game (nearly said vital but they all are, potentially, now) against Wigan Athletic.

As seems to be our lot, we will face newly emboldened opponents. The 3-1 win at Blackpool has Latics fans simpering at the prospect of survival, not least when they see our state of disarray. It also shows, ominously, that they can score goals.

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