Welcome Martin O’Neill. The new manager of Sunderland AFC takes charge with an enormous fund of goodwill from, at a guess, the overwhelming majority of supporters. As results continued to disappoint, Steve Bruce’s post-match e-mails became one of the rods with which he was beaten. Bruce’s Banter has been seen here for the last time. We must wait to see whether O’Neill On Us* – look on it as O’Neill’s Onus if you prefer – is as regular a feature …

So, the new managerial reign begins with the briefest of statements from the incoming boss.

“It’s a very nice feeling to be back in football and to be the manager of Sunderland. It’s a big moment for me. I’d heard about what a good club it was but coming here, seeing the stadium and training ground, I’ve been bowled over. It’s absolutely fantastic.

I hope I can help Sunderland to very successful period. That’s what I’ve come for and that’s my driving ambition.”

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Image: Mrs Logic

Monsieur Salut looks back on a momentous week for all who care about Sunderland AFC …

As I began to write this review of the week, we were a day into the post-Bruce era of Sunderland AFC, three days from an important game at Molineux.

By the time I finished the first draft (these are after thoughts), we were just waiting for official word that Martin ONeill had Been appointed in Steve Bruce’s place. And MoN knows perfectly well what the Sunderland faithful will be hoping he can pull off.

And what a week it has been.

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Image: Psiaki

Years ago, but some months after the changeover from typewriters to computers, a dopey newsdesk man where I then worked surprised colleagues by asking: “Tell me again. How is it that you log on?”

The poor soul was ridiculed. But I quite like dinosaurs.

Perhaps I was alone in warming to Steve Bruce on reading that he barely knew how to send an e-mail until quite recently, and looked completely blank when asked whether the fitness of his Egyptian signing Elmohamady would be affected by fasting during Ramadan. The reporter persisted: “Or is Elmohamady a Coptic Christian rather than a Muslim then?” And Bruce – who might more pertinently have been asked on what footballing grounds Elmo had been bought – looked blanker skill.

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Pete Sixsmith mulls over the two most-mentioned candidates for the managerial seat left vacant by Steve Bruce’s dismissal …

So, the inevitable has happened and Steve Bruce has left the club. I was in no doubt after Saturday that he was as close as close could be to the sack; when it didn’t come on Monday, I thought he had been thrown a lifeline, but once again, I was wrong.

The owner has done the correct thing as there was little possibility of Bruce retrieving his relationship with the crowd. Three lengthy periods of turgid football and poor results, interspersed with the odd sparkling display, had done for him and it was better to put this horse out of its misery now.

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So Steve Bruce has gone, fired today as the inevitable casualty of his team’s abject failure to get results to match Sunderland AFC’s spending and the supporters’ reasonable expectations. It is not a great day for SAFC, which remains for now in a mess. Salut! Sunderland finally and reluctantly came off the fence after the Wigan debacle and acknowledged the need for change. We had promised to reserve judgement until the end of November; our deadline, the last of the month’s games, passed without trace or hope of improvement.

Now Ellis Short has taken the required action. Or part of it. We wanted the club to have a replacement ready, not run the risk of a leaderless chasm. That was a tall order and no one appears to be lined up to take charge with immediate effect, unless Short has a trick up his sleeve and it is merely a case of dotting Is and crossing Ts. We’ll be watching and praying …

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In an ideal world, bright SAFC publicity people would have told Pete Sixsmith: “Get yourself along to the Reserves; someone’s due a hammering.” Instead, the 7-0 demolition of Scunthorpe was out of bounds to Salut! Sunderland and practically everyone else. So Pete joined Steve Bruce and others at an FA Youth Cup game – and saw us beaten…

Away from the brouhaha surrounding the continued employment of Steve Bruce and the sadness surrounding the tragic demise of Gary Speed, there has been some football played.

In the afternoon, the reserves demolished Scunthorpe United 7-0 at the Academy (but we’re not allowed in to watch) with Ryan Noble getting a hat trick in four minutes. Pity he couldn’t have done that against Fulham. He must be in line for a place on Sunday and if on the bench, and will with any luck be given longer than last time on the field.

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One of Monsieur Salut’s regrets is that although certain readers have taken a strongly pro-Bruce – or anti-kneejerk – line none has recently accepted the open invitation to put such thoughts into a full-sized posting. Yet there’s no shortage of hostile comment, as the latest Birflatt Boy offering demonstrates …

Let’s not beat about the bush on this issue.

The overwhelming majority of Sunderland fans not only want him gone after the debacle of losing at home to Wigan. Not only do the fans want him gone, they expected him to be gone already.

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For most proper supporters of Sunderland, or indeed any other club, the commitment is unconditional. We may be scattered around the world, and the team/s we follow may experience varying fortunes, but we broadly want the same thing, week after week: success at whatever level we happen to be playing.

Younger Sunderland fans have known only the Premier League and upper end of the division below. The codgers have seen the old Third Division for one season and been close enough to another dose. Our allegiance has survived intact, and would do so again in the event of yet another relegation.

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Steve Bruce looked a broken man on Match of the Day. Some of the abuse lobbed at him, Salut! Sunderland believes, was unacceptable, but it had hit home. To a large degree, of course, he is the author of his present misfortune. Jeremy Robson, hardly a born again convert to the Bruce Out cause, discusses this latest calamitous era of Sunderland’s managerial history …

For followers of this fine club of ours there has been a sorry history of underachievement apart from the two seventh placed finishes under Peter Reid and the solitary FA Cup win in 1973. I watched it again last night and for the very first time experienced the realisation that this was a long time ago.

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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 usually appear within a day or two.

Today was a day that brought some ennui, a little shame and lots of despair.

Sunderland’s owner Ellis Short wrote in his debut matchday programme notes that there was no need for panic though “the performances and results on the pitch are our number one concern and we are all looking for improvement there”. After a storming start, one goal and several missed chances, we might at least have expected something resembling that improvement to be visible once we reached 10 to five this evening.

How predictable that we should then concede a daft penalty and, as Gary Bennett put it in radio commentary, “run out of ideas” before letting Wigan win. The October and November’s games – the run M Salut gave Steve Bruce to turn things around – are up. So, with the greatest of respect, is Steve Bruce’s number. Panic or not, the results (which include a quite scandalous three points from home games versus WBA, Villa, Fulham and Wigan) remove any vestige of understanding, patience and support for the manager’s position.

Much more will be said on this in the coming days, days Bruce will surely be extremely fortunate to survive with his job. But in truth, he should not need to be told; he should solemnly recognise his duty and do the professional equivalent of retreating with brandy and revolver to the study.

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 …

Nov 26 2011 SAFC (1) 1 Wigan Athletic (1) 2 *Bruce’s reign surely over after this debacle. That was M Salut’s verdict, followed by these from Mr Sixsmith: “Shambolic defending spells end for Bruce now”, “He must go after another clueless performance”, “Got what we deserved after brainless display”, “Pressed the self destruct button yet again”, “Second half shocker means Bruce’s time’s up” and finally “Print them all”.

Nov 19 2011 SAFC (0) 0 Fulham (0) 0 Truly appalling game lacking pace, creativity, threat

Nov 5 2011 Manchester United (1) 1 SAFC (0) 0 Decent performance but slipshod defending cost us

Oct 29 2011 SAFC 2 (1) Aston Villa 2 (1) … Determination and effort produced a fair result

Oct 22 2011 Bolton Wanderers (0) 0 SAFC (0) 2 … Team selection vindicated in impressive second half

Oct 16 2011 Arsenal (1) 2 SAFC (1) 1 Defended bravely but attacking options barely existed

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 …