Well, we certainly hope we’re ready for Stoke. Last season, they came to the Stadium of Light after the mauling at Newcastle left Steve Bruce in need of a quick bounceback. He got one, courtesy of two Cashamoah £yan goals and the ref’s poor eyesight. How much more urgent is the need for a win tomorrow? Salut! Sunderland summarises a busy, unhappy (for us) week with plenty, too, to interest Chelsea and Stoke supporters …

The ink had hardly dried on last week’s review of the week before the inkwell was well and truly knocked over. Hours before the kickoff of Sunderland v Chelsea, we were hit with news of the loan deal taking Asamoah Gyan to the United Arab Emirates.

Somehow this turned a match in which I feared we’d struggle into an away banker, even though Gyan would not have played in any case because of injury. It was something to do with what the news told me about the spirit within the camp and, perhaps, the club’s own view of the big picture.

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Image: Addick-tedKevin

What did others – Blues fan included – make of the alleged Bardsley stamp? Was my own defence of him naive? STOP PRESS: see Fitz’s comment – no appeal, now confirmed by safc.com. which suggests we must accept the worst interpretation of the episode. There was, sad to say, no need for quotation marks around the word “stamp” in my headline …

One of the few Sunderland players to perform with consistency and unlimited passion over the past year or so has been Phil Bardsley.

I like to think of him as an honest player with shedloads of enthusiasm and courage. He has limitations but plays to his strengths as a solid defender who offers a bit of menace, and even a decent shot, when going forward. And he does it just as well if forced to play out of position.

But is there a dark side, too, to Phil? I hope not.

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As the club adopts the familiar look of one in turmoil, Pete Sixsmith admits to deep concerns in his analysis of the many shortcomings all too visible in Saturday’s defeat by Chelsea. Rather a lot, he suggests, now depends on the team’s – and especially Steve Bruce’s – immediate response …

There have been a few dispiriting days for a Sunderland supporter over the past 48 years, and Saturday was up there with the big ones.

It may be wise to keep off the Gyan move for a couple of days and see what emerges from both sides (read this link to catch up), but it was a major disappointment so see a striker go after the deadline, leaving us bereft of even a semi-regular goalscorer.

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Steve Bruce‘s day got off to a bad start with the announcement that he had lost a third top striker, this time Asamoah Gyan, off on loan to the Al-Ain, second city in the Abu Dhabi emirate of the UAE. Then we faced Chelsea. And, to no great surprise, lost, much more soundly beaten than the 2-1 scoreline suggests. This was his post-match e-mail …

Dear Colin,

Chelsea were excellent today and they played the ball fantastically well – that’s why they play at the level they do.

They frustrated us with the possession they had, however, we did have some good chances, but on the day we have to admit that Chelsea were that bit better than us.

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This is where Pete Sixsmith captures the glory and shame, hope and despair, excitement and ennui of the Sunderland matchday experience. When, rarely, Pete is absent or delayed, a supersub does it for him and the seven-word verdict is preceded by an asterisk. Pete’s full analysis of the game will appear within a day or two.

Today? After SAFC’s slow and – with the Newcastle defeat – disappointing start to the season, Chelsea came,saw and conquered. A sloppily conceded goal by John Terry was followed by lots of Chelsea possession and threat and Sunderland generally looked a poor second best, amply reinforced by the simplicity of the second, from Sturridge. Ji Dong-won clawed back a late consolation but apart from a two-minute flurry at the end of each half, did we ever really look like claiming a point?

The full Sixer’s Sevens archive – see link below – sums up what all Sunderland supporters feel, from darkest gloom to sublime elation, in the words one who is usually there …

Sept 10 2011 SAFC (0) 1 Chelsea (1) 2 Comical defending hands Chelsea their regulation win

Aug 27 2011 Swansea City (0) 0 SAFC (0) 0 Uninspiring game. Both teams look like strugglers

Aug 23 2011 Carling Cup 2nd Round: Brighton & Hove Albion (0) 1 SAFC (0) 0 Abysmal team selection got what it deserved

Aug 20 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Newcastle United (0) 1 Totally outfought in dismal second half display

Aug 13 2011 Liverpool (1) 1 SAFC (0) 1 Came back well, better side second half

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 …

** Want to write to the club about what you’ve seen, heard or read about the way things are going? Do it with the Salut! Sunderland engraved pen. Yours for just £2, post-free in the UK, by clicking here

Another of those retrospective looks, for the reader in a hurry, at what has been served up in recent days …

Breaks for internationals act a little like “slow down” signals for Salut! Sunderland.

Occasional contributors do not think of tossing anything our way. M Salut was away in Rome in any case, for a long weekend devoid of football unless you count a look round the Colisseum, a model – in terms of the building rather than original purpose – for the stadiums of today.

And for once, not even Pete Sixsmith could be trusted to return from some non-league backwater with flashes of entertaining prose. It remains to be seen whether he chooses to write about his own trip, a few days in Antwerp.

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Denise: 'SAFC will finish just inside top 10'

Denise Hone*, ChelseaD from The Chelsea Blog, has been here before, but without the real name. She previewed our great win at Stamford Bridge last season and – despite that – agreed to have another go at the Salut! Sunderland questions ahead of Saturday’s return to proper, post-international football. Denise does her “biggest pessimist” credentials no harm as she offers interesting responses on a range of issues from changing places at the top of the Premier to her Chelsea loves and hates, cheating and the weather up north …

Salut! Sunderland: You obviously saw it coming, last season’s 3-0 win for us at your place? Explain it all the same!

I saw defeat coming, maybe not 3-0 to you but it was on the cards. We’d started the season so well after a rubbish pre-season but as every game went on cracks started to appear and the wins were less convincing. It was always a matter of time before the wheels came off – and when they did, it was no Formula One pit stop.

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The Chelsea Blog repeated last season’s exercise and popped a few questions our way about 2011-2012.

No great original thought appears in the replies, but I place them on record so that Salut! Sunderland readers can:

* Tell me I’m spot on

* Offer a sharper assessment

* Come back later to tell me to say how wrong I was

I’d also add that my answers would be slightly different had the questions been posed today and not a couple of weeks ago.

News from the Emirates, for example, would have made me wonder about Arsenal’s chances of making the top four. I hate to say it but fear our opponents for tomorrow’s opening game will sneak in and grab the Gunners’ slot … that is a shame because M Salut is a fully paid-up admirer of M Wenger and would be sad to see his club slip down the pecking order.

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The boot goes in next week when our end-of-term, end-of-season reports start running. Well, that may be putting it harshly since at least one of the contributors we have lined up will be making a strong case for the defence.

But for now, let us hail another man who has been making a compelling case for the defence all season. Step forward Phil Bardsley, winner of the official Player of the Season poll run by the club to add to the similar honour he collected in the SAFC Supporters’ Association awards. And he ends the season a winner on four counts, if you include the internal players’ vote and his debut as a McInternational.

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Across at the official club site, it’s already that time of year.

Who, safc.com wants to know, do fans make their player of the season and young player of the season, and what were the goal, save and team performance of the season?

Voting closes on May 11 – which I hope does not mean no one will be trying to pull off the goal, save or team display of the season on May 14 against Wolves or at West ham on May 22 – and each vote is entered into a prize draw with a pair of tickets to the May 18 awards dinner at the Stadium of Light as the prize.

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