Who are we? We’re Sunderland. Yes, the boot was on the other foot again as Jonathan Fear, from the Aston Villa section of Vital football, put questions to Salut! Sunderland, just as an Arsenal fan did last season. See if you agree with the answers…..

1) So how is the season going, were you shocked at the exit of the bearded one or was it time for him to go?

Very disappointed. Being a Sunderland fans means I always expect the worst, but I honestly thought the pre-season signings had set us up to move on to better things, or at least away from another relegation scrap. I was told from On High when we appointed Keano that the club knew it was taking a massive risk that could blow up in its face. But to be fair, he did his job – or the first two parts of it, from rock bottom to champions in the promotion season , keeping us up last season. This season, he showed how little he appreciates criticism, how unwilling he was to play a settled side and how unattracted he was to a long, difficult haul.

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Villa through and through, Jonathan Fear* is Salut! Sunderland’s second football web guru to preview Saturday’s game at the SoL. He’s the co-owner and a director of Vital Network, which runs www.vitalfootball.co.uk. As many fans will know, Vital splits into sites for the supporters of different teams. In the picture, he’s on the right (or should that be the left? see comments), and photographed with his good friend Dennis Mortimer, a former Villa captain, and another pal, Deano. As for the game, he sees the ball bouncing off a Sunderland backside past Fulop in time added on to bag three away points (a prediction I erroneously attributed, at another site, to our first Villa fan, Stuart Young, though he also reckoned on 1-0 to Villa). They both would say that, though; Villa are on a high, and he gleefully recalls a quote from local radio to the effect that they seem to be winning when they’re good, when they’re OK and when they’re rubbish…

Did you expect such a strong challenge from Villa this season? Can you make to 2nd of 3rd – or would Martin O’Neill suggest you’d been drinking?

I am not sure I expected quite as strong an assault on the top four. I know that is where the powers that be and the manager at Villa want to get us and that we are building, but I didn’t think our summer spending was quite good enough to fire us this far up the league. I think now, depending on whether we bring in at least 2-3 decent quality purchases including at least 1 striker, then we are in with a shout. Fair enough you look at the so called established ‘big’ four (hate that expression) and they are more used to finishing the season and the pressure etc, but then we have a good young team with players that look like they are enjoying themselves. Not only that we have picked up the habit of winning ugly. So even if we aren’t playing well, we are still getting the maximum points which is a great habit to have!
One of our local radio chaps said recently ‘Villa win when they are playing well, win when they are just ok and win when they are poor. That is the sign of a great team forming’.
However despite the highs we experienced in the early 80′s + the two League Cups in the 90′s we are used to disappointment, so I REALLY don’t want to get too carried away, that said, it is always nice to dream and having finished 16th, 11th and last season 6th, it seems pretty obvious that we’ll win the league this year!
As for Martin O’Neill, he’d be right if he suggested I’d been drinking and if he has any sense, so has he. That is one job I could not do for all the tea in China, the pressure must be agony at times.

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