image: Addic_tedKevin

M Salut offers some advice to Martin O’Neill on the fines he may wish to consider imposing after yesterday’s defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory at Molineux …

The competition – click here – to come up with a new name for Martin O’Neill column at Salut! Sunderland is still open.

OK, the new manager does not yet know he’s to have one. But whether he chooses to sent out post-match e-mails or rely on simple statements and comments, his thoughts will be distilled on these pages just as Steve Bruce’s were.

(more…)

So Steve Bruce has gone, fired today as the inevitable casualty of his team’s abject failure to get results to match Sunderland AFC’s spending and the supporters’ reasonable expectations. It is not a great day for SAFC, which remains for now in a mess. Salut! Sunderland finally and reluctantly came off the fence after the Wigan debacle and acknowledged the need for change. We had promised to reserve judgement until the end of November; our deadline, the last of the month’s games, passed without trace or hope of improvement.

Now Ellis Short has taken the required action. Or part of it. We wanted the club to have a replacement ready, not run the risk of a leaderless chasm. That was a tall order and no one appears to be lined up to take charge with immediate effect, unless Short has a trick up his sleeve and it is merely a case of dotting Is and crossing Ts. We’ll be watching and praying …

(more…)

Jimmy Armfield*. Placed together in that order, they are two of my favourite words in the English language. There have been better footballers and managers, though he wasn’t bad himself, acclaimed during the 1962 World Cup in Chile as “the best right-back in the world” and later doing good work in charge of Bolton and Leeds. There have been better sports commentators. But he has a depth of knowledge and utterly dependable expressive qualities that most of them must envy. We desperately hope the result from the Stadium of Light tomorrow comes as a bitter disappointment to him – a robust comeback after the also-ran display at Old Trafford is a must – but we salute Jimmy Armfield all the same and offer our warmest best wishes to a wonderful voice of the game who played his entire Football League career for one club: tomorrow’s opponents Blackpool …

Salut! Sunderland: What a fabulous time for Blackpool!

Well, the fabulous time really was Wembley. We thought last season was case of trying to stay in the Championship and then suddenly we had this run at the end of the season and ended up in the playoffs and thought “Blimey! they’ve got there. How did we manage that?” And then won it: how did we ever do that that?

Then we thought “OK it will probably turn round” and we all prayed about the first game at Wigan – and ended up winning 4-0.

(more…)

Some of us can remember it as if it happened yesterday and we still played at Roker Park.

But it didn’t, and we don’t. Just as Hammers of a certain vintage hark back to a certain date in October 1968, we think of May 12 1980.

There was a difference in the scorelines – 8-0 against 2-0 – but our win was over newly honoured FA Cup winners and, though they started strongly and might easily have gone ahead, our victory secured promotion.

(more…)

Image: addick.tedKevin

On top but wobbly. That was the essence of the text messages from the Stadium of Light. Great to secure three points, but television replays show just how wobbly it was …

Salut! Sunderland rattles on week after week about cheating and is among the first to whinge when appalling decisions cost Sunderland points.

Arsenal fans, some of them, came here in self-righteous indignation when, week after week, we asked opposing fans in our Who Are You? feature the Eduardo Question – essentially are you ashamed when one of yours cheats? Our questionnaire before each game still includes a question on the same subject.

But we cannot have it both ways, and we don’t.
(more…)

Time, as we said, to move on. There’s another important game looming: SAFC v Stoke City on Saturday. Stephen Foster*, the author of two classics among “my club” football books (buy them at the best prices by clicking here), is another great capture for the Who Are You? series. Stoke through and through, he writes with the passion and wit that appeals to fans of other teams: look at the acclaim he won for She Stood There Laughing and the follow-up, on City’s first year back in the top flight, … And She Laughed No More. Welcome to Salut! Sunderland, Stephen (or Steve as he was for the first of those books thanks to a publisher’s error) …

Salut! Sunderland: you wrote our first question for us, Stephen: “What’s it like having half a side made out of Sunderland cast-offs representing Stoke City?” Apart from – or even including – Tommy and Kenwyne, is that how you see them?

No, not really, once you’ve got players they become yours, don’t they (unless you actively loathe them). But sometimes getting on for half our starting eleven have migrated from one set of red and white stripes to another which is a bit much: Tommy, Collins/Higginbotham, Deano, Rory, Kenwyne. The greatest contribution has come from Delap, no question, he was the key unit of the Pulis Method in the first Premier League season, at the outset of which, to be fair, everyone was predicting we’d ‘do a Derby’. The full backs are fine, the ‘keeper is solid, Whitehead is one of those players I just can’t see the point of. I think of Kenwyne a bit more as “one of ours” anyway since we had him on loan (from Southampton) for a couple of months in the Championship. He was the archetypal Bambi on Ice then; living up on Wearside certainly put some beef on him. He’s started off brilliantly, scoring in four consecutive games with his head, though he did have a muted and subdued match against Man United. We’ve been warned about that tendency from both your fans and your manager and I have to say he didn’t look up for it when he was confronted by the best centre back pairing he’s encountered so far in Ferdinand and Vidic. Vidic knocked him about which he didn’t seem to like. I wonder if he’ll do the curse of the ex against you…

(more…)

From David Schiavone, one of the Red Cafe Man Utd podcast people, came this understatement: “Well done, your team were quite impressive”. Along with a belated signpost to my pre-match interview for them (a bit past its use-by date but you’ll find it at this link if you really want; the interview is along way in). But meanwhile, Salut! Sunderland’s need for the treatment table is growing …

Thanks to the continuing technical problems that are beyond our control, it has sometimes seemed hardly worth the effort to post items at Salut! Sunderland of late.

Footballunited.com hopes things are about to settle down; indeed it hoped this would happen over the weekend.

I’ll believe it when it happens, as will Jeremy and Martin in Canada, Manchester United fans trying to follow a link from the Republik of Mancunia site and various people I’ve heard of in the North East who have been unable to see what we’ve been doing here.
(more…)

Flooding the Manchester United dressing room with a burst pipe was a great ruse. But after the plumbing-delayed start, we couldn’t quite turn general supremacy into victory. The second half was more even, but we still had more chances to clinch it – …

So Steed Malbranque had two decent chances. Bolo Zenden hit a post. Darren Bent had a half-chance. We outplayed Manchester United for long periods of this game – and yet, after yet another stonking display against Big Club opposition (four in a row), we had to settle for a draw.

That’s Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United. Four games from which we might have got absolutely nothing, but from which we ended up with six points. And for the second time in those games, we were entitled to feel we had done enough to merit a win.
(more…)

This report has been superseded by SAFC 0 Man Utd 0: two dropped points

Our ingenious ruse, attempting to destabilise Manchester United by bursting a pipe in the away dressing room, nearly paid off .. but after the plumbing-delayed start, we couldn’t quite turn first-half supremacy into a lead …

All I have to go on is the BBC Radio Newcastle radio commentary via the offical SAFC club site. I cannot bring myself to watch an internet stream that I know is many seconds or even, in one case today, minutes behind the action.

But the commentary from Nick Barnes and Gary Bennett is good, if partisan (pro-SAFC despite the name of the station).

And there does not seem to be the slightest doubt that Sunderland deserved to go in at half-time with a lead of at least one goal.
(more…)

Image: billfromesm

Lots of raw nerves were touched with reaction to our Republik of Mancunia interview yesterday, with Manchester United fans displaying a mixture of indignation and bewilderment at both sites, and loads of thumbs-down here, leaving Salut! Sunderland to ooze all the wisdom and fair play it could muster. Now the boot is on the other foot: the Stretford End Arising blog – click here to see it – lobbed some questions our way. Here goes …

Stretford End Arising: In recent years games between Sunderland and Manchester United have been tight affairs with only a single goal separating the two teams. What are your views on Saturday’s fixture? How are Sunderland likely to line up?

Salut! Sunderland: We did better at your place than ours last season. At Old Trafford, although you finished strongly, it took Richardson’s folly and a wicked deflection to save a point for you. At Sunderland, we huffed and puffed but United always looked safe on 1-0 and capable of stepping up a gear. Saturday is our third major test in a row; you’ll be on a high after Valencia and it is going to be tough. I suspect Bruce will stick with Mignolet in goal despite Gordon being fit again; defence depends on the injury list but our chances of getting a result would rise if Mensah were available Up front, I wonder whether the ineligibility of Welbeck will tempt Bruce to start with both Bent and Gyan, but suspect he’ll flood the midfield. Our key players could be Mensah if fit, Jordan Henderson (a Man Utd fan, I was distressed to learn recently) and Steed Malbranque in midfield and, of course, Bent. And Cattermole’s ability to stay on the pitch.

(more…)