Image: OwenBlacker

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the embryo of a body of contrition hovering over the Emirates stadium as it dawns on Arsenal folk that their self-canonised saints of football may also, from time to time, stray from the path of purity …

Cesc Fabregas is a magical footballer, a convincing contender for any choice of the Premier League’s finest. He is also, necessarily, strong, fast and committed.

So realistic supporters, whether they are Gooners or follow Sunderland or Chelsea, Wolves or Stoke or indeed anyone else, can sympathise with Fabregas when he tells his manager he hadn’t the slightest wish to injure Stephen Ward of Wolves. Yet it was challenge that some felt merited a card of a different colour than the yellow shown by Mark Halsey.

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Jeremy Robson ponders the list of possible contenders for the England job, if Fabio Capello does not stay on. He finds one omission surprising, though there is just a slight suspicion that he may be taking the Mick (and a much stronger suspicion about an SFR dongle’s ability to work on a French TGV, which explains why Jeremy’s piece was cut almost in half for most of the day …

Harry Redknapp
Roy Hodgson
Martin O’Neill
Stuart Pearce
Steve McClaren
Tony Pulis
Sam Allardyce
David Beckham
A N Other

These are the candidates for the England manager’s job. Well, at least these are the
names that The Guardian feels worthy of inclusion in its list of potential replacements
for the beleaguered Italian.
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Pete Sixsmith arrives at the penultimate stage of his journey to every World Cups from 1966 to 2006. From the 2002 tournament he remembers the McCarthy-Keano spat, wailing South Korean teenagers, Tommy Sorensen’s howlers and yet another Brazilian trophy …

It’s interesting that as you get older, the more recent memories don’t stay for very long, while the more distant ones linger. When speaking to Neil Martin a couple of weeks ago, I was able to picture the goals he scored in my boyhood far more clearly than I could those of say, Tore Andre Flo or Jon Stead.
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In the first two extracts from his book, Sing When You’re Winning, Colin Irwin trod the familiar path of Sunderland’s history: early glory, post-war turbulence and 1973 fairytale (with as much literary licence as the Brothers Grimm). He left us with the anxiety of relegation-haunted fans as kickoff neared in SAFC v Boro in Jan 2006 …

Not that the nail biting lasts for long. Sunderland forget that Emanuel Pogatetz, the big lad strolling into their penalty area when Middlesbrough are awarded a free kick just outside the box, isn’t there to discuss the latest bargains at B&Q and may have evil intent.
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The dreadful run continues. Sunderland cannot finish off lowly teams – or even score against some of them – and can hardly count on doing fairly well, fairly consistently when confronted by the elite. Cana’s heroics have not been forgotten but he starts to look like a liability, the only question each game being how many minutes will elapse before he is shown a card. The first of our forlorn post-Villa reflections is, in part, a tale of two managers …

Steve Bruce, admittedly struggling with a squad hit by injuries and suspensions, plays his best available teams and gets a single point from two home games. Mick McCarthy gets slated for fielding reserves at Old Trafford (and yes, the travelling Wolves fans should be given £100 a head refunds for their wasted evening), but emerges with three points from two tough away games.
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As Sunderland prepare to entertain Wolves, Salut! Sunderland extends a hearty welcome to Mick McCarthy for what we hope will be a viist he enjoys for the warmth of his reception, but not the result. Colin Randall takes the opportunity of recalling the day he came to the aid of the party …

Dec 10 2004. The eve of a 2-0 win at Cardiff on our way to an easy Championship title and promotion under Mick McCarthy.

Also the eve of a flatwarming party I was throwing after moving to Paris. Friends from Sunderland, on their way to join us for the weekend, bumped into the team at Newcastle Airport. Mrs Friend had a bright idea: she bought a “congratulations on your new home” card and marched up to Mick to get him to sign it.

He obliged without hesitation, writing a cheery little note with the PS: “And my invitation? In the post, is it?”

I liked Mick. Even when Keano was our hero, I knew who’d had right on his side in the Ireland World Cup spat, and it wasn’t our hero.

Mick did wonders for us on a shoestring, reaching the FA Cup semi-final and the playoffs in his first full season and romping back to the Premier in the next.

Life was tougher for him when we were actually in the Premier. Stuck in my memory is the mischievous Football Pools-style way in which one Sunderland fan summed up MM’s win/draw/lose sequence as our Premier manager:

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLDWDLLLLLLLLLDLL

And that was only Jan 2006. I mentioned the run in a piece in the Telegraph (under the headline That Sinking Feeling Again) and noted sadly that a game against Chelsea had just added another L. More Ls were to follow before Mick’s departure and another record-breaking low points tally (thanks Derby for capturing that honour from us).

That said, I thought he had done as good a job as was humanly possible given the lack of resources at his disposal. And I do wonder, as I asked Wolves fans this week, what he would have done with the sort of money Keano and Bruce have had to spend.

Welcome back, Mick. You’re a top bloke. Sorry about the party invite.

Salut! Sunderland forecast: SAFC 3 Wolves 1