We were all justifiably lifted by winning 4-3 and are of course getting completely over the top excited about being an okay side again. The over the top completely mirrors the over the top dread that we feel when we lose. I don't know how many times I've had a look at p 324 on Ceefax to check our position, our goals scored, our games in hand, our potential position. Life feels good.

I watched the first half hour of the Sunderlnad game on Sky last night and they are at the absolute opposite end of it, despite starting the game in roughly the same points position and with the potential of going top.

The crowd was much more like a Boro one than a Sunderland one and that seemed to transmit down to the players, or maybe it was the other way around. Spurs took them apart, with Sir Les, Sheringham and Poyet toying with them but unable to get the ball in the net. Amazingly you could hear Poyet shout for a corner at one point, and you could hear the Tottingham supporters pretty clearly. This isn't normal for Sunderland, we know they are better than that.

Some things stood out as being poor decisions by Reid. Arca, who we have all seen is a spot on player, was stuck wide right and seemed to be playing lots of passes with the outside of his left foot. This was to let Kilbane who is positively hopeless play on the left. Sky kept mentioning Spurs 10 injuries, and how well they were doing despite that but it makes you wonder how poor Sunderland are at the moment.

Only a few weeks ago we were doing one on one player comparisons with our Sunderland friends and coming up with two sides which we agreed were fairly equal in status. After last night and last Saturday we (!) would find it difficult to pick one Sunderland player ahead of a Newcastle player. (Phillips for Bellamy, difficult choice at this moment ?).

So what changes things ? A few on here admitted they were in love with Peter Reid and I think we were of the general opinion he was a good guy. He does seem to be a stubborn bugger though. He needs to lift the crowd again cos I think the loss of Hucth and his subsequent moanings has struck a nerve they had all surpressed while they were getting the results.

While Dalglish and Gullit were getting us results, or to a Cup Final they got away with murder. Reid doesn't have that to hide behind. I didn't see the end of the game so I don't know the crowds reaction, but I doubt they are happy. They haven't managed to score more than one league goal in a game this season and it looks very like a Dalglish mentality is taking over, with all the negativity that entails. I always felt Dalglish wouldn't sign a player unless he was clever in the deal. (Georgiadis on the 'cheap' because of some contract issue, Glass on the cheap as he was out of contract, Brady on the cheap because of contract issue ....). Reid seems to need to similarly have been clever in the market before he'll move. The thing is they must have mega bucks sloshing around, I read somewhere that they'd spent a net £10m on transfers since they came up which is less than Charlton !!!

I love to see Sunderland not doing well as I've had years of them being our natural opposition, but if they don't lift the blackness over themselves soon they don't look good enough to stay up. This may seem a bit over the top but the teams at the bottom are the usual suspects and I feel Sunderland have gone partly away from being a usual suspect and don't even have the fight they had previously. Even though we mocked it a midfield with Ball/Rae/Schwarz/Hucth/McCann was alwyas going to fight, they seem to have lost that now too.

They play Charlton on Saturday before having Bolton, Man U, Boro, Arsenal. They really need to win that, or it could be a long cold winter.

The other potential problem is the one that hits you if you lose your manager mid-season. Where do you get a replacemtn from ? You aren't allowed to approach a manager in a job so you can only go for cast offs as we had to do with Dalglish, Gullit and Robson. At the moment the only out of work managers of the calibre they'd be looking are George Graham and Gordon Strachan, neither of which would make me feel excited.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

Answers

i think reid is a managerial barnacle mac

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

There is an old adage in football - "you're never as bad as you think you are, and also never as good". I suspect that applies to both Clubs right now.

Curiously, having preferred to watch the dreary Liverpool CL game, I only saw the final 15-20 minutes of the mackems game last night and they didn't look too bad in that period. SK scored a terrific opportunist goal, and they were actually a little unfortunate not to get another goal and a point.

Reidy is a curious fella. I love listening to him on telly - a great Scouse character - but he seems to have major blind spot as a Manager. He places great emphasis on team-work and shared committment. I suspect he believes he will not get that from so-called stars, and indeed that this kind of player, who would disrupt the wage structure, would create envy and adversely affect team morale. The potential problem here is maintaining a very high standard, and maintaining the motivation/committment at 101% with that approach season after season.

Reid has established a very entrenched position at SAFC through his equity ownerhip. If things ever did go to s**t for him there, this could create significant problems for the Board, and removing him other than by mutual consent may not be all that easy. Frankly, I doubt it will come to that.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

I caught the last 10 mins of the makem game, after the bore draw in Dortmund. It struck me that although the fans raised themselves, there was little for them to shout about on the pitch. The Munchkin looked fairly sharp, and nicely skinned a Spurs defender on the dead ball line (before being upended), but there was precious little thought in the final panicky attacks - hoof up and crowd the pen area, hope for the best. Nearly came off too, but it sounded like it would have been a total injustice to the previous 80 mins.

Not sure the SoS is about to see a relagation battle this season, there are worse teams - just. But if I was a makem (shudder) I'd be pretty frustrated...and wanting Reyd to explain himself.

Grand club mon cul!

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

Any idea of how much shareholding he has, is he the second or third biggest, it could be fun/expensive trying to remove him if he is.

Sunderland seem to have hit exactly the point Man City did when they sacked him. Well established as a team taht finishes 7th, but somehow things don't feel right, that nagging doubt thaat he can take them higher.

On the fisrt 20 minutes there aren't that many worse sides in the Premiership. I know it may just be a blip, but the team had no class. You need a touch of class all over and they just didn't have enough. Having wily forwards against you like Sir Les, Poyet, Sheringham made the Sunderland defence look slow.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

The Makems were in this position this time last season: they'll rally and very probably finish about 7th again.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

An off night, and the crowd didn't help, but they've still got the players to dig themselves out. I still think they'll be top half, and there is NO chance of Reid losing his job in the short or medium term (ie this season).

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

One thing I'm being seriously circumspect about this season is our poxy game in hand. We've never won our games in hand ever, so just do all your maths from the point of view of simply suffering a bit on goal difference and you won't be dissappointed.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

I've spent most of my life saying the phrase 'aah, but if you include our games-in-hand...'and I ain't stopping now! It means that throughout the season we are HIGHER than we really are, and I'm all for that. The disappointment at the end of the season when we lose all our games-in-hand I'm used to, but the other scenario of doing better than we are can last from September to April!

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

We might not get full points from our games in hand, but we must be happy about our early results against tricky opposition. I'm sure people's hearts sunk when we saw the fixture least, with us all wondering where our first points would come from if we didn't beat Boro or Sunderland.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

We didn't get beaten at home by anyone who finished in the top six last season. Our biggest problem was finishing off poor sides and doing something in London so our big challenge is still to come.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

Agreed, but we've got a point in London already, and we finished off Boro..

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

On a direct comparison we have +1 from Chelsea, +1 from Sunderland, same from Boro, +2 from Man U so we're four points ahead of last season, when we were crap. That would put us on 55 points and finishing 8th, although the team that finished 7th is now 2 points down on its corresponding games from last year.

So we could well be aspiring to be as good as Sunderland soon :0)

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

Macbeth,

Is that what's called fuzzy logic?

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

"dodgy counter"

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

....... noticeable lack of mackem contributors to this extremely guarded and contemplative thread.

I find this very interesting - last season, before we had any 'lurkers' on here, we would have simply ripped SAFC apart after losing to Glenda's goats last night.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

Clarky, I'll think you'll notice a distinct lack of baiting all over the place. I think because of last weeks events, arguing about this and that seems so trivial and unimportant. So sunderland lost last night, I would rather see them lose than win, but I can't (at this point) gloat about it.

So far today I've been checked by ARMED security guards a total of four times...........what have we become?? :-(

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001

Oh yeah and the Sears Tower was evacuated today as well. Feckin' great this mind!!

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2001