We had some lively banter here last week with Villa fans on the essentially unimportant matter of who supports the bigger club. See it here. At least Villans don’t live in a part of the West Midlands with such an alarmingly shrinking population as poor old Newcastle seems to have. But what on earth do they make of their club’s latest attempt to lure a world-class new manager? …

Having failed to secure the services of a manager who very nearly took his team down, Aston Villa are reported to be taking the process one logical step further.

The new Villa target is evidently Alex McLeish who got quite a lot right at Birmingham City – that great run in the 2009-2010 season, and winning the Carling Cup last season – but managed to get one rather important thing very wrong indeed.

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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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Steve Bruce took a lot more consolation from a 2-0 defeat at St Andrew’s than our own Pete Sixsmith, who – when not noting with grudging admiration the class of Seb Larsson – recognised some improvement but felt it stopped a long way short of what was required …

As recent performances go, this one wasn’t bad – although that really is damning it with faint praise. But it was another defeat, another drop in the table and an entry ticket to the scrap that is taking place to avoid visits to Coventry, Barnsley and Middlesbrough next season.

There are some positives that we can take from this. The passing was sharper and crisper than of late. We did create some chances. The team seemed to be together. On another day, we could have won or at least taken a much needed point.

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Pity poor Pete Sixsmth. Another early start for a long awayday, another bitter disappointment. Once again, The Observer asked for his verdict. We start with the Birmingham fan …

KYM YPRES-SMITH, SmallHeathAlliance.com

We’ve been worried for weeks, especially after dipping into the bottom three, but this win means we can breathe again – we just need a few more points to be sure. I think 2-0 was a fair reflection of the game. Our first goal was bizarre but just reward for Larsson – he was our man of the match today, Bowyer also played well. We’ve still got a lot of injuries but team spirit got us through today.

Player ratings
Foster 8; Carr 8, Johnson 9, Ridgewell 8, Parnaby 7; Larsson 9 (Fahey n/a), Ferguson 8, Gardner 8, Bowyer 8; Jerome 7 (Derbyshire 90 n/a), Phillips 6 (Hleb 63 7)

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… in which Steve Bruce bemoans our luck. Part of me takes his point – we dominated for long periods, had half chances and fashioned the best move of the match from which Henderson went close to equqlising – and another part wants to write back and say “sorry Steve, it just won’t wash”. Either way, we’re left hoping for salvation from points still to be won against other teams scrapping for survival …

Dear Colin,

The one thing you can’t account for is individual error and unfortunately that’s what the first goal was.

I haven’t seen the goal back on replay yet but it was an awful one to give away.

Overall the performance was good – possibly the best we’ve played for a while, which is the positive out of it.

Sometimes our performances haven’t been up to where they should be but we played very with a young team.

Unfortunately we couldn’t score, and that’s the defining thing. Goals are what we’re in need of and unfortunately that wasn’t there today.

It was a game of nearlies. The performance pleased me – we played well all over the pitch.

But unfortunately when you’re not winning sometimes things go against you. We didn’t deserve to lose today, but we have.

I hope the players take confidence from the performance. If we perform like that next week I’m quietly confident we’ll get a result.

It was good to watch and it was a huge shame we couldn’t come away with something.

All the best,

Steve Bruce

Monsieur Salut

Staring with yet another defeat, these are the most recent of Pete Sixsmith‘s incisive seven-word verdicts capturing the essence of just about every game. When, rarely, Pete is absent, a supersub does it for him. The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – encapsulates the matchday experiences, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, of a fan who is usually there …

April 16 2011 Birmingham City (1) 2 SAFC (0) 0 Soft goals mean our position is critical

April 9 2011 SAFC (2) 2 West Bromwich Albion (2) 3 All our weaknesses horribly exposed: totally inept

April 3 2011 Manchester City (2) 5 SAFC (0) 0 No shape, no fight, heading for oblivion

March 20 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Liverpool (1) 2 Liverpool better, but crucial decisions against us

March 5 2011 Arsenal (0) 0 SAFC (0) 0 Take your pick: A solid performance to be proud of or Better than Barca as we thwart Gunners

Feb 26 2011 Everton (2) SAFC (0) Were never in the game; easily beaten

Feb 12 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Tottenham Hotspur (1) 2 Beaten by side one step above us

To see Sixer’s Sevens in full, click here. If an asterisk precedes the comment, the words that follow are the work of someone else because Pete is for once absent from the game or his verdict has been delayed …

This was another result we feared, but it should never have happened.

Better team in the first half, miles better at the start of the second and you can guess the rest: goalkeeping error before halftime puts us one down, then City’s first good move in an hour doubles their lead – Mignolet again arguably at fault – to leave Niall Quinn looking as glum as we feel.

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This article has been superseded by Birmingham City 2 SAFC 0: Mignolet nightmare but where was our punch

That just about sums up 2011 for Sunderland.

Every reason to hope the dreadful run may be about to end. There isn’t much punch but we’re in charge. All the creativity comes from us. SuperKev has barely been seen.

Then the City keeper boots the ball gratefully downfield. There’s nothing to worry about. Bardsley has Larsson breathing down his neck but can hoof it out if he has to. Mignolet raises his arm. It’s mine!

Only Sunderland supporters can guess what happens next. The ball’s in the back of the net and Bardsley is remonstrating with the hapless keeper.

“Harsh to be behind,” read Pete Sixsmith’s text from Sy Andrew’s. “but we haven’t really threatened.”

Please let it get better … by which I didn’t mean let’s go two down.

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Since Steve Bruce writes to us so often, he must be a regular reader and have seen the odd bit of praise and support as well as the brickbats. This one, though, is not for him: John Baker*, who runs a USA-based photographic tours company, is a Birmingham City fan with his own unflattering analysis of our manager, once theirs. He also reckons SuperKev will score against us on Saturday, but allows for the possibility of Sunderland getting three in reply …

A few weeks ago, this fixture would have had a different look, you warding off relegation worries, us looking towards Europe. What now: a home banker?

I’d like to think so, but it depends on which McLeish and Bruce team shows up on the day. Brum appear to have pulled away from their post League Cup doldrums, while Sunderland, although free-falling right now, have managed some results without the valuable services of one Darren Bent, I wish you’d have kept him as the Villa would have been all but relegated without him by now!

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Now we know it: Kevin Phillips will be starting on Saturday* intent on heaping more woe on Steve Bruce and Sunderland supporters: “You look at the teams we have got left at home – Sunderland, Wolves and Fulham – and it’s no disrespect to those teams but they are games we feel we can win.” Pete Sixsmith, though, has broken our collective duck: he’s actually witnessed a win, and over money-coming-out-of-our-ears Manchester City at that. You know what’s coming next …

A Sunderland win at last! I was hoping to use that header after Saturday’s trip to St. Andrews, but the Reserves beat me to it with a well deserved 2-0 win over Manchester City at Eppleton/Hetton last night.

Goals from Craig Lynch in the first half and Ryan Noble after the break, sealed the points in the last game of the regular season and possibly the last game to be played under the current reserve set up.

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