That, says Pete Sixsmith (the only around here who seems to be working, but come back soon for the full version of Tash's brilliant essay), is the question. He reports on concerns voiced elsewhere about our failure, so far, to land a single new player. Those concerns may be premature. Man Utd, having lost a special if immensely irritating Portuguese individual, have barely begun their own buying (albeit with less need than us) and already we're fretting. But perhaps the thoughts being expressed just now reflect the impatience, suspicion and fear that, together with a weakness for being unfair constitute the essential attributes of the true Sunderland fan ...
The first friendly is a week away. We have not signed one player yet. Bruce needs to get something sorted out quickly or else we will be left behind in the race for mid table respectability. This is not good enough for a club of our stature. We should be looking at Ibrahimovic, not Crouch, Vidic not Da Silva, Etoo not Bent.
It's summer. Not much going on, save for transfer speculation (Roy Keane maybe in for Carlos and Nyron, us undecided between Rooney and Drogba - well, the first bit is true, according to the papers) ...the new season approaching but still far enough away not to worry about. Let Pete Sixsmith, then, introduce Tash, a great new Salut! Sunderland writing talent with heartwarming words about her first visit to the Stadium of Light ...
As June limps out and July dashes in, the new season comes ever closer. There are just over two weeks to our first pre-season game at Darlington and here, at Sixsmith Towers, there is a little flutter of excitement in the not inconsiderable tummy as yet another dawn arrives that promises to be as true as an Elvis Costello shot rather than as false as a Labour Party manifesto.
The love and affection (and occasional contempt) that the grizzled veterans of Roker Park have for the club is well documented.
Some live close enough to feel it 24/7, while others live far enough away to have a more detached view. Sometimes, we take Sunderland for granted, with the world weary, cynical view that we have seen it all before and no doubt we will see it all again.
Pete Sixsmith's many qualities were not previously thought to include a talent for fashion commentary. Then Mike Ashley decided to have yet another (last?) laugh at the expense of Mags by coming up with the ugliest, most inappropriate away strip imaginable. Pete's first reaction was "Yellow and Gold: ugh!!" This is his second ...
Just when Newcastle supporters thought it was safe to come out of the house, the new away strip is launched on an unsuspecting and incredulous public. Yellow and orange stripes are, in the words of one of my Magpie students, “absolutely minging” and just about sums up the general feeling of anyone with any kind of colour/dress sense.
It could well be that this is Ashley’s parting gift to the club and city that has come to loathe him as much as we loathed McMenemey 25 years ago. If so, it’s a hell of a leaving pressie, expecting the rapidly diminishing number of Toon Army foot soldiers to walk around looking like giant deckchairs.
Pete Sixsmith welcomes the arrival of the pre-Murdochisation fixtures list ...
For a self confessed football addict like me, June is the worst month of the year. No football anywhere in the North East, just the remnants of the Scottish Junior programme over the border. Saturday afternoons are spent inhaling fresh air instead of stale beer, frying onions and embrocation. Evenings are spent hunched over GCSE History papers or slumped in front of a TV set, desperately searching for news of transfers on teletext or Finnish League games on some obscure channel.
While some thoughts are turning to the coffee bars and nocturnal attractions of Amsterdam, where the Lads go for a pre-season tournament* pitting us against some tasty opposition, simpler pleasures arrived in today's post.
One was an excellent new Roy Bailey album - Billy Bragg says he's as challenging as Clash ever were, but then this is a sentence that probably belongs at Salut! Live. The other was the new ALS Toon Doon T-shirt, which is also excellent.
It graced the badminton courts of Le Lavandou in the south of France tonight, but I thought it looked better on the ALS model. But Marie-Noelle, one of my badminton pals, did ask: "C'est quoi ca, Toon Doon?" I explained the two important events of the last day of the season, and she quickly understood (or humoured me).
My thanks to Pete Sixsmith for sending it. He'll do anything to keep in with the editor.
* Book your Dutch treat to be around the Amsterdam Arena between July 24 and 26; Sunderland join Ajax, Atletico Madrid and Benfica. I know managers always say pre-season games are "all about fitness" especially if they've just lost, but wouldn't it be encouraging for the new, Toon-free, Boro-free season to do well in such company?
Bruce is our boss, much as expected for several days, and whatever reservations others may have, it's exactly the right appointment, says Pete Sixsmith ...
Well, it didn’t take long to get a new manager in, suggesting that Niall Quinn had lined Steve Bruce up before the end of the season – depending on whether we stayed up. Had we done a Newcastle and ended up in the Coca Cola Championship, it would have been a much lesser light than Bruce – maybe Kinnear or Shearer.
So far, the reaction has been muted. I didn’t notice thousands of people outside the Academy welcoming a new Messiah, or toothless Wearside crones claiming they hadn’t slept all night because they were that excited.
Salut! Sunderland has said it before. We are not a sports news agency and have no wish - or ability - to compete with mainstream news media or newsy websites. Our role is different and it doesn't take too much scrutiny of the archives to see that.
But the appointment of a new manager is an event of such significance for our great club and its even greater supporters. So let us extend a warm welcome to Steve Bruce, who tonight becomes not only that manager but also our favourite Mag.
Bruce is a complete professional and will neither be distracted by his history as a Newcastle United man nor reinvent himself as a lifelong Mackem who would like nothing better than to see the Mags descend another division or two.
Our most recent experiences of Barcodes at Sunderland are not encouraging: Lee Clark's T-shirt, Michael Chopra's unmissable miss against Toon. But we got plenty of good work from Clark beforehand, gloried in Bob Stokoe's finest hour, saw Chopra score a goal against someone else that played a huge part in keeping us up last seasom and could easily dig up plenty of names from the past to show that people in football can act as adults and properly serve the hands that feed them.
So Bruce starts with a substantial benefit of the doubt, our heartfelt wishes for him to succeed and, if Pete Sixsmith agrees, a promise not to call him Mrs Doubtfire again, at least in the forseeable future.
And we rather liked this, from Kaveh Solhekol at The Times website: extracts of a piece on the six things Steve must do ...
Forget about Newcastle United
Bruce has made no secret of the fact that he supports Newcastle, but most Sunderland fans are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt ...
Attract the right players
Bruce is expected to have up to £50 million to spend on new players, although in reality he may get less than half of that to spend this summer. That should not be a problem for a manager with good contacts around the world ...
Hold on to what he has got
Sunderland players such as Kieran Richardson, Dean Whitehead and Kenwyne Jones will be linked with other clubs ... Bruce has to decide whether to cash in or keep his best players. The futures of Craig Gordon and Paul McShane will also need to be sorted out.
Plan to stick around
Bruce has been a manager for 11 years but he has already changed jobs six times ... Sunderland fans will have every right to be angry if he does walk out because he has everything a manager needs – money, rich owner, sensible chairman, loyal fans, modern stadium ...
Put his arm around Anton Ferdinand
Great things were expected ... but so far he has done little to justify his £8 million price-tag after a promising start ... Bruce will need to work the same magic that he used on Titus Bramble at Wigan to turn Ferdinand into a top-class defender.
Answer his phone
Steve, if your phone’s ringing and Ellis Short’s name comes up on the display, take a deep breath, press answer and say, “Hello, Mr Short. What can I do for you?”
As we await what now appears to be the inevitability of Steve Bruce's installation as manager of Sunderland, the news from Wigan itself is that we should be prepared for quite an influx from the JJB, or DW (Dean Whitehead?) as it will be known next season.
This is what Bernard Ramsdale**, our award-winning man with his ear to the ground has to say:
Reports from people in the know at the club are convinced that SB will be moving to the Stadium Of Light, taking all of his backroom staff with him. These will include Nigel Spink as goalkeeper coach and Eric Black as his number two. It also includes an extensive, and very successful scouting team. (Palacios, fourteen million pounds and Valencia, 15 million pounds for an outlay of six million isn't too bad is it)
And this:
The imminent arrival of Steve Bruce as Sunderland manager could have catastrophic consequences for Wigan Athletic.
Reports of Bruce wanting to take Lee Cattermole to the Stadium of Light have surfaced and the fans of the Latics can also expect Bruce to make a bid for Titus Bramble as well according to reports in the Daily Star.
The loss of Bruce may well be overcome depending on the club's replacement manager but chairman Dave Whelan must be concerned about the possible loss of two of the clubs best players and the sooner things are brought back to normality at the DW Stadium, the better.
Recent Comments