Mrs Logic

There must 50 ways to leave the reader in no doubt it has not been a good week. We’ve probably used them all. But let us all bounce back, get behind the Lads – again – and see how we feel at 5pm. In the meantime, here is another of our nervous backward glances at the stories you may have missed …

It can be tough keeping a promise to be upbeat. But there was one item that stood out a mile as an example of positive thinking. Click on the sub-heading to read each item, starting with a Pete Sixsmith special …

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Image: addick-tedKevin

Since it has reached the stage where I can hardly bear to read anything to do with Sunderland AFC, I realise what it must be like for those coming here and feeling curiously forced to do so.

But no apologies whatsoever for returning briefly to action to congratulate Phil Bardsley on winning the Sunderland Supporters’ Association Player of the Year award and Simon Mignolet the young player equivalent.

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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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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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Images: Addick-tedKevin

So according to the Telegraph, Craig Gordon is hoping to be involved at some stage of Scotland’s friendly with Brazil at the Emirates on Sunday. This appears to run counter to Steve Bruce’s insistence that he can play only in an emergency because SAFC are still trying to solve his tendinitis problems …

But more intriguing was this quote:

“I would not rule out playing for either club or country if needed. I don’t expect to play in the next few weeks for Sunderland, but if I am asked to I will.”

If you’re fit to play, you’re fit to play. Is Gordon saying it’s only a friendly. Or is he saying he thinks Simon Mignolet has edged ahead of him in the pecking order and would be Bruce’s first choice anyway, at least for now?

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There was a moment in the second half when Craig Gordon clinched my vote.

Despite great admiration for the way Simon Mignolet has performed, and without the slightest doubt that he has a potentially wonderful future which I hope will be with us, I regard Gordon as Sunderland’s No 1 keeper.

* Both images from our old friend addick-tedKevin

The incident I recall was over in a flash, The ball was travelling head height, straight at Gordon but hard and with a Spurs forward’s head inches away. The assurance with which the keeper caught it somehow trumped, for me, the string of saves he had to produce in the first half.

Even the mild criticism I made of his role in the Tottenham goal is tempered by the belief that he can hardly be faulted for seeing the immediate danger as the aerial power of the lurking Crouch.

In all, it was a highly successful return to the Sunderland starting team, fittingly at the ground where last season he suffered a bad injury from a lunge from Defoe that ought to have been punished but wasn’t.

So I am pleased to read Steve Bruce’s comments to the official SAFC site:

“He’s been knocking on my door. He is the number one goalkeeper.

But the one thing I didn’t want to do was take Simon out of the team having had five goals past him.

We’ve tried to protect him a little bit. Craig proved again at Spurs that he’s a very, very good goalkeeper.”

I hope Mignolet can live with the disappointment and draw strength from the fact that Bruce, taking his remarks at face value, clearly does not hold him to blame for events at St James’ Park. And, with an eye to recent speculation, I hope with equal fervour that Craig is not even thinking of himself as being in the shop window.

Monsieur Salut

* Both images from our old friend addick-tedKevin

Who keeps goal against the stars of Manchester United on Saturday? Craig Gordon’s recovery from injury hands a tough old decision to Steve Bruce …

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Rarely in recent times has a Sunderland debut been as keenly awaited as that of Asamoah Gyan, who should team up with Darren Bent to cause Wigan all sorts of problems on Saturday. That’s the theory anyway. But if you saw a Daily Star headline suggesting that Steve Bruce “admired” Gyan’s World Cup penalty miss, rest assured that he did nothing of the kind …

Alert readers will have seen that the image (below), sometimes used to illustrate Salut! Sunderland items relating to Darren Bent, is credited to a man who calls himself Addick-tedKevin and can therefore be assumed to support Charlton Athletic.

No surprise, then that Kevin should have paid his artistic tribute to Benty, who scored 31 times in 68 games for the Addicks between 2005 and 2007.

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