"I hope they don`t sack Bruce, it`s taken f****** months for the Kenwyne song to take off" - Eddy Clamp, Stoke City supporter at the Oatcake fan site
"Tried to volley instead of heading it, couldn't sleep for weeks afterwards." Danny Dichio on his missed sitter in the Charlton playoff final (as explained to Rob, again at Twitter)
Some Salut! Sunderland readers gave encouragement to the idea of maintaining our occasional look at French football. And there’s enough Sunderland interest in Ligue 1 this season to make it worthwhile …
STOP PRESS: ST ETIENNE, without Steed who was not eligible and played for the reserves instead, beat Bordeaux 2-1 away tonight – a great start and the defeat couldn’t have happened to more deserving opposition. Steed impressed in his run-out, showing plenty of verve and enthusiasm according to the official club site, though he ended up on the losing side (2-1). And is it going to an Arles-Avignon sort of season for Patrice Carteron’s Dijon? Walloped 5-1 at home by Gyan’s old club Rennes!
The headline in Saturday morning’s Le Figaro had the whole of French football trying to play catch-up with the Man City-style flash boys of Paris Saint-Germain. PSG flaunted their new Qatari-sourced wealth by spending the ludicrous sum of €43m for Palermo’s Argentinian attacking midfielder Javier Pastore just too late to start the season last night.
Lille’s 2-2 draw at Paris Saint-Germain last night was enough to bring them the cup-and-league double – they had already beaten PSG in the final of the Coupe de France – and a promise by the club president Michel Seydoux to throw a “huge party in this marvellous city”.
That’s a great achievement for a relatively unfashionable club that will do well to hang on to its better players. It is only their third Ligue 1 title, though their second double (look back to 1946 for the first). I did help a little by predicting a comfy late cruise to the championship for Marseille but the record books are unlikely to acknowledge this contribution.
Before we get hopelessly bogged down with pre-derby coverage, Monsieur Salut gets up early to update events in France …
After an uplifting victory over St Etienne, who are doing well in the French Ligue 1 for the first time in years, the team every Sunderland supporter should keep a soft spot for – Nice, managed by Eric Roy – resumed their mini-slide.
A 1-0 defeat in Lens was the disappointing result from Nice’s weekend (and heaven knows how they got back from the grim north to the sunny Med with all those fuel blockades). So the Lads/les Mecs slip to 13th (our finishing position last season) when victory would have taken them to seventh (where we are now). (more…)
Just as my back was turned – back in England for a few days – Eric Roy’s Nice took their first defeat of the season and it was a grim-sounding 4-0 thumping at Sochaux.
And then went out in the League Cup – which may seem familiar to Sunderland fans – in midweek, though at least the scoreline was more respectable (2-0) and it was away to this week’s Ligue 1 leaders, St Etienne (it’ll probably be someone else top next week). (more…)
Update: from the Sunderland Echo: photographs of Asamoah Gyan arriving at Newcastle Airport have been posted on Facebook.
For Salut! Sunderland’s Nice corner – our regular look at French football – I scoured today’s L’Equipe in vain hope of finding authoritative news that Asamoah Gyan is already booking his passage from Rennes to Roker.
One or two other French reports were still talking of our interest in bolstering an attack “trop dépendant de Darren Bent” as one put it. But the emphasis was more along the lines of “Sunderland not abandoning hope of signing…” than “Sunderland set to clinch deal ..”. (more…)
This old clip, starting with Eric Roy waltzing through the Chelsea defence to set up Niall Quinn’s first goal in that 4-1 hammering of too long ago, seemed as good a way as any of illustrating a quick look at events in French football over the weekend.
The team Eric now manages, Nice, who therefore qualify for Salut! Sunderland support in the way Paraguay and Ghana did in the World Cup. came back from the long trip to Brittany with three points after an excellent 2-1 win over Lorient. Loïc Remy, for whom each game is described as probably his last for Nice (Marseille have joined the clubs wanting him but Spurs look favourites) got the winner. (more…)
Whatever Franck Ribery, Karim Benzema and Sidney Govou did or did not get up to after tiring of all those discussions on Molière, Voltaire and Baudelaire with young Zahia Dehar, there are still football issues to decide in France …
Forget (for a moment) the sex scandal. Forget Thierry Henri’s outrageous handball against Ireland (and at least Ribery & & co have taken the heat off him ahead of South Africa). (more…)
Until the Marouane Chamakh farce began, we had nothing against Bordeaux. Liked the city (though not too much), loved the (overpriced) wine, respected Laurent Blanc’s championship-winning achievements, albeit in a relatively weak league. Mais zut alors! M Blanc and his equally blank president have sorely tested our patience, and the entente cordiale …
In deference to the French half or, rather, third of its name, Salut! Sunderland had lately suspended hostilities against Bordeaux, hostilities aimed not so much at its fans* as at its arrogant, hard-of-thinking management.
But the latest outburst from the French champions’ president Jean-Louis Triaud cannot be overlooked. Having first claimed, along with the Bordeaux manager Laurent Blanc that Sunderland was not a big enough club to sign Marouane Chamakh, he now says the deciding factor was Lilian Laslandes’s “depressing” spell on Wearside. (more…)
When Sunderland wanted to buy Marouane Chamakh from Bordeaux, the answer from Laurent Blanc, manager of the French side, was that we were not a big club. Chamakh could leave only for a big club. He was therefore unavailable, or unavailable to us. The club’s president added his own insult later, saying he knew nothing about SAFC.
Champions of the French league, joint top of their Champions League group, Bordeaux attracted all of 28,700 for their home win against Maccabi Haïfa – one UK paper gave it as 17,500 which must have been a mistake – on a night when Bayern Munich filled their 66,000-capacity stadium. Look at the Old Trafford gates. Look at our Premier attendances (37/38,000 even when we play the likes of Wolves). Then remember the 6,000 empty seats in Bordeaux.
Which is the big club, M Blanc? Et, bien sur, qui pête plus haut que son cul?
We’ll get onto Chelsea in a minute. First, though, be aware that Laurent Blanc has been up to his idiotic tricks again, saying Marouane Chamakh could go only to a “big English club” and no such club is there for him. We are no longer chasing Chamakh, according to Bruce (though I see he has already scored three goals for Bordeaux in their opening two Ligue 1 games), but the jibe is aimed at Sunderland. Consider our likely attendance tomorrow night against Chelsea, compare it with the pathetic 32,000 who watched the first Bordeaux home game and then work out which is the bigger club.
So we made a great start at the Reebok, and could not be mentally more ready for tomorrow night. Most bets will nevertheless be on an away win. David Millward*, lifelong Blue, ducks the issue but agrees that this could be Chelsea’s year for the title. Here is how he answered our questions …
There’s been plenty of backing for Chelsea as champions this season. What do you say?
Logic says this could be true. Much depends on whether Ancelotti is a Hiddink or a Mourinho. First signs are encouraging. He has not mucked about with the side. The game against Manure showed they have not lost their competitive cynicism and, from a distance, Ancelotti looks like Hiddink – little grey haired fat man in a suit.
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