Pete Sixsmith gets his teeth into the rumour mill and fixture list planners and risks more Villa wrath with some mischievous managerial suggestions. He also halls a German team (on our pre-season tour) with an unlikely slogan …

Fixtures are out on Friday, so no doubt we will get Swansea away on a Tuesday night and Norwich away on New Year’s Day. Not that the original list is much to go by. After Sky and ESPN get their mitts on it, we will be looking at Saturday evenings, Sunday mornings and Monday nights.

In the meantime, we have lots and lots of conjecture about who’s coming and who’s going. According to this morning’s rumour mill, Darron Gibson and Wes Brown are about to sign – although Brown may opt for Blackburn or Bolton – and John O’Shea is reluctant to move from Old Trafford.

Ji Dong-Won, Seb Larson and Kieran Westwood are waiting for their contracts to run out before they sign for us and David Ngog will “put pen to paper” (love that phrase) when he returns from his two weeks at Butlins, Minehead.

Players leaving are Nyron, George McCartney and Matt Kilgallon, if we can find anyone to pay their wages, while there are kites being flown with respect to Craig Gordon and Steed Malbranque being “offloaded”.

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Ascension
Akuppa

Not the most popular statement a Sunderland supporter can make here, and directly at odds with the first line of the song, but it is the season of goodwill …

Masquerading as a Clio-driving visitor from France, not so far from the truth, Monsieur Salut went undercover after the victory over Bolton.
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Ascension
Image: Akuppa

Click here for Salut! Sunderland’s first look at the derby through Mag eyes …

As every schoolboy ought to know, our last win at St James’ Park – a distressing 10 years ago – was made all the sweeter by an Alan Shearer penalty miss. Here are two of the many stories of that aspect of Nov 18 2000 …

Aintree, for the 2001 Grand National. On the basis that nothing is too good for the Sunderland-supporting working class, Guy Illingworth felt no shame at being treated to all the goodies corporate hospitality can bring. Plus a famous neighbour.
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… only in a spot of fun offered by the Sunderland Echo, which produced this mock-up image to show how the Mags’ hero might look if he were prepared to wear the SAFC shirt.

He was asked to do it for charity – Sport Relief – and refused point blank. It is not that he’s an especially tight sod who’d never dream of digging into his pockets for a good cause; in fact, he even offered to shower Adrian Chiles, presenter of BBC’s One Show, with cash.
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The Rovers Returned in the nick of time. We were beginning to fear Dan Clough* – great surname and he runs the Rovers Return site – was not going to get back to us with the answers to the customary Salut! Sunderland questions. It being Christmas, he’d completely forgotten. But here they are, including his thoughts on Sunderland (essentially “none, I’m afraid”) and Alan Shearer (“true Rovers legend”); and given how often we played Blackburn Rovers last season, each time getting a Rovers previewer, it is probably a small wonder that there was anyone left to interview …

Salut! Sunderland: Miserable about your form so far this season or just happy to be out of the relegation zone?

A mixture of the two. Things started reasonably well but recent form has been desperate and, with no signs of our away form improving at the moment, things are starting to look bleak. It’s good not to be in the relegation zone, but after a few bad results we are well and truly in the relegation battle at this moment in time.

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Salut! Sunderland, while not caring enormously about international football, congratulates Darren Bent on his England call-up. Good for him, brings a little reflected glory to the club and may yet prove more meaningful than SuperKev’s inclusion in unSuperKev’s Euro 2000 squad. But there is unfinished Bent-related business. What was that about eating our words? Colin Randall prepares the dish, chooses the wine and sets the table …

Salut! is now officially split on the issue. In his excellent review of Saturday’s events at White Hart Lane, Pete Sixsmith said the penalty was right and so was the yellow, since red would have been harsh.

I finally saw the footage late last night. I still believe Gomes made a rash dive at Bent’s feet and that it was therefore a penalty waiting to happen. Except that Darren didn’t wait, and it – the foul – didn’t happen.
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