Y!kes

See my sig :D We've got Danny Rose on loan from Spurs, bit uninspiring tbh. A potential move for Jenas has broken down which a lot of our fans are quite pleased about. Richardson's moved to Fulham, it'll be interesting to see where they play him. Solid at left back, inconsistent everywhere else.

Week Three Fixtures: Saturday 1st September West Ham 1 - 2 Fulham 12:45 Swansea 1 - 1 Sunderland 15:00 Tottenham 3 - 1 Norwich 15:00 West Brom 2 - 2 Everton 15:00 Wigan 1 - 0 Stoke 15:00 Man City 4 - 1 QPR 17:30 Sunday 2nd September Liverpool 0 - 0 Arsenal 13:30 Newcastle 2 - 0 Aston Villa 16:00 Southampton 1 - 2 Man United 16:00

Absolutely ridiculous decision, but the day turned out alright anyway so not complaining too much. Ended up in the VIP area of some club on Saturday, with Micky Gray, Sasa Ilic and Chris Makin. Haven't seen any of the weekend's football bar about 10 minutes of Stoke v Arsenal.

Buzzing about Johnson, never in a million years thought it would happen. Brilliant business by the club, and a real statement of intent from O'Neill. Also very pleased to finally have Fletcher wrapped up after the most excruciating transfer saga of the summer. A couple more players and we'll be set for a real top half challenge.

What a difference a couple of signings makes, cannot wait for the match now :D

And hopefully Reading have worn themselves down for Saturday :D

Week Two Fixtures: Wednesday 22nd August Chelsea 3 - 1 Reading 19:45 Saturday 25th August Swansea 1 - 1 West Ham 12:45 Aston Villa 1 - 2 Everton 15:00 Man United 2 - 0 Fulham 15:00 Norwich 3 - 2 QPR 15:00 Southampton 2 - 1 Wigan 15:00 Sunderland 1 - 0 Reading 15:00 Tottenham 2 - 0 West Brom 15:00 Chelsea 2 - 0 Newcastle 17:30 Sunday 26th August Stoke City 0 - 2 Arsenal 13:30 Liverpool 1 - 2 Man City 16:00

Fee agreed for Fletcher, yay. Also, I think I tipped Hughes to be the first manager sacked this season.

Skybet are offering odds of just 1/2 that Johnson will be a Sunderland player by tomorrow. Really dunno what to make of all this tbh :/ Oh, and according to Sky Sports a fee for Fletcher has been agreed.

Confident, then? :lol: We've got Morecambe at home, on paper a straightforward enough draw but then we did get beaten at home by Notts County in the FA Cup a couple of seasons back, so who knows. I would say O'Neill will probably give the fringe players a go but our starting XI is bad enough without resting people :mellow:

Yeah, while we've apparently tabled a permanent bid.

Some of the media are running with the story that Adam Johnson is all but a done deal. As much as i'd love it to be true as it's the sort of signing that would push us to the next level and really show some ambition by the club, I still can't see it. It would most likely kill our wage structure as well. I guess we'll see.

A 7/10 sounds about right, which I think is a similar score i'd give to Intimacy. Bit worried about Bloctober now, loads of their O2 gigs are starting to sell out :/

Loved Collins, never an outstanding player, technically a bit shit but always gave 110% in a Sunderland shirt, and he even got his own chant :D For Brazil he should play, Danny Collins, For Brazil he should play up front, For Brazil he should play, Danny Collins, For Danny Collins is a skilful.. Good times.

Decent draw at the Emirates, always a difficult place for us to go to and it's one more point than me and a lot of other Sunderland fans were expecting, so i'll gladly take that. Arsenal of course were dominant, but for all of their domination and how much they had the ball, Mignolet didn't have an awful lot of saves to make. Really we were causing all our own problems by being sloppy in possession and wasting the few opportunities we did have when we got forward, but defensively we were impeccable. Cuellar had a very good debut, O'Shea looked solid, Richardson arguably MOTM at LB, Gardner didn't put a foot wrong. Very pleasing. We have to take this result and performance into the game against Reading which won't at all be easy. Hopefully we'll have one or two more new faces through the door by next weekend and we can kick on.

Week One Fixtures: Saturday 18th August Arsenal 2 - 0 Sunderland 15:00 Fulham 1 - 0 Norwich 15:00 QPR 1 - 1 Swansea 15:00 Reading 2 - 1 Stoke 15:00 West Brom 0 - 2 Liverpool 15:00 West Ham 2 - 2 Aston Villa 15:00 Newcastle 1 - 1 Tottenham 17:30 Sunday 19th August Wigan 1 - 3 Chelsea 13:30 Man City 4 - 0 Southampton 16:00 Monday 20th August Everton 1 - 2 Man United 20:00

I still don't want to predict how we'll end up, we're so far from being properly prepared it's embarrassing. Sunderland AFC is the kid who crammed all of his revision into the one night before an important exam which he knows he's going to fail anyway. When I was utterly underwhelmed by the start of the season last week I thought "well, it's a week to go, maybe we'll make that one signing that gets everyone buzzing, and i'll be stoked on Friday night before Arsenal!" but no. I want to be excited and I want the adrenaline to be rushing, but i'm not and it isn't. Urgh. Anyway: 01 Manchester United (seriously, how many times have we seen them bounce back after losing their title? it'll happen again imo, but it'll be close) 02 Manchester City 03 Arsenal 04 Chelsea ------------------------- 05 Spurs 06 Newcastle 07 Everton ------------------------- 08 Liverpool 09 Fulham 10 Stoke 14 Sunderland 17 Wigan ------------------------- 18 Southampton 19 Norwich 20 Reading Yeah, 14th. I don't think we'll be anywhere near the top half if truth be told.

Saha's signed. 1 year deal.

I would say i'm glad this has gone through before Saturday, but then I look at the rest of their team and the mess ours is in and i'm still no more optimistic than I would be anyway.

Louis Saha apparently at the AOL today, close to signing according to the ITKs. Alright squad player, no more. Surprised he'd even come here to be backup tbh. It's only a few days before the season kicks off, it does smack of 'panic buy' somewhat, he's been available for a while now, no idea why we're leaving it this late. Hopefully if we do sign him it'll get the ball rolling and we'll see a few more new faces in before we play Reading.

Why not say £14m to begin with instead of pissing us around? £10m was still more than enough for Fletcher, regardless. Not really. We're the only club interested, if they were holding out waiting for another club to come in with a bid they've failed. I doubt any other clubs would be stupid enough to come in and bid £14m for him. We've got the money, they need to sell him. I can see him being sold for way less than £14m by the end of the window.

Technically we've offered £10m (their initial valuation), and that was rejected. We then offered £12m (their revised valuation), and that's been rejected. They're now asking for £15m, to which I say they can go and fuck themselves. The whole saga's been rumbling on far too long, they're pissing us about, it's time to drop it and move on. He'll end up sold at a reduced price eventually anyway because he won't want to play in the Championship. Hopefully Jez Moxey gets hit by a bus, the fat greedy shit.

A week to go, and at last we're ready for the big kick off! So glad we've finally signed som- ..oh.

Yeah, it's definitely sounding a bit better on 2nd listen. Day Four is such a tune.

Fletcher hands in transfer request then tweets about it. Yay.