Sunderland, what you doing? Don’t go down the road to ruin. Happy New Year, and goodbye to 2007, a Red and White year that’s been half tremendous and half alarmingly similar to the last two Premiership autumns. At least we ended the last year as we hope to continue the next, with a win. We’ll probably need another half-dozen to achieve safety, which is a shame considering all the positive posturing of the summer. Reality is that you need to run to stand still in this league, and spend like we’ve spent to achieve fourth bottom. Scary stuff indeed, but not the transfer window is upon us, and thus it’s time to hoy some more money about. Some of the names that have been bandied about in the press have been a bit scary as well. Robbie Savage, have we become so desperate that he, who can’t see a leg without falling over it, is considered in possession of something that we need? Sorry, I don’t see what it is. He’s a decent enough player, and admittedly he doesn’t court controversy off the field, but he does spoil things with his general cheatiness. On the other hand, it might just be a decent investment to buy him and stick him in the reserves for the rest of the season, just so Wigan or Fulham can’t take him on board do something positive in their bids to stay up.

As well as the three points on Saturday, there was something equally important, the emergence of Keyring Richardson as a genuine creative option with that bit of quality necessary in this league. If he maintains that level of contribution, and Jones does likewise, good things will come. Maybe it’s time to get him back into my dream team alongside Berbatov (surely I must be manager of the week with his points from the Spurs v Reading match) and Torres. A player coming back from an injury sustained before he’d had time to prove what he can do for us could well act as a lift for the rest of the players – and extra outlet for the ball in the absence of Carlos, and also someone with an eye for a killer pass and a quality dead-ball.

After being severely reprimanded for failing to provide the traditional jelly babies at either of the Christmas home games, they were safely in my bag, along with the seasonal electronic Sudoku, mince pies, and assorted posh nibbles from the hamper, a good twenty four hours in advance of the trip to Blackburn. While the most rest of the football world dragged its collective self out of bed for a trip to wherever, we good folks of Wearside had a deserved lie-in, along with most of those teams around us. Not that New Year’s Eve had been that big a do, just a small collection of Bittermen, along with wives, offspring, and offsprings’ better halves. Having talked about Sunday mornings long since consigned to the mud of pub football’s history, who Sunderland would bring in (Berbatov would be a nice start, we decided), and the price of caviar, it was time to set off the party-poppers. Having already set a nostalgic tone to the evening, the smell of them sent Pop back to a childhood of cap-guns. Can you still get them, with their little blue/green rolls of caps? Or are they not politically correct enough in this enlightened age? Anyhow, as we were in Bish, we celebrated the arrival of 2008 in the most fitting way possible – with a game of doms. Upwards of £1 changed hands – it should have been more, but certain offspring hadn’t bothered taking money out with them. Sally Robson, this will not be forgotten.

So, instead of trailing down to Blackburn at some (relatively) ridiculous hour and having to ring around the pubs of Lancaster to find who would be providing the grog, it was a day for quiet contemplation, trips to the tip with the wrapping paper and empties, and wondering when the bairns would come home (if at all). The second consecutive day of perfecting my Sean Bean impersonation, courtesy of the History Channel’s two-day Sharpe-a-thon (“tek tha’ yuh French bastid”) ended as the day’s results came in, and for once we’d stayed put thanks to Fulham losing to Chelsea and nobody else playing.

Wednesday started fairly well, as we went close to wiping out the first two cars we encountered at the Thinford roundabout, but at least we got to Lancaster in one piece. And in time for me to find another new refreshment outlet, the name of which will remain a secret until our next trip to the North West. Suffice to say that both buses were filled with jolly folks for the last hour of our journey, all said folks filled with hope and expectation for the evening to come. Not without reason, either. I reckoned that Blackburn’s recent spell of less than impressive football presented us with a damn good chance of getting a win. We were in an especially good frame of mind as we’d arrived too late to get into the official coach park, thus saving £40. Whoopee.

The starting eleven (Gordon, Deano, Higgi, McShane, Collins, Wallace, Richardson, Miller, Yorke, Murphy, Jones) was no big surprise, with perhaps only Murphy being a bit unexpected, but he did OK down the left as we ripped into the home side for the majority of the first half. Murphy shot from the left and crossed from the left, Jones shot from the right after holding off the defender, but no goals came. Richardson had followed on from where he left off on Saturday with a masterly midfield display and provided the impetus for most of our forward play. Like the much-similied boxing match, the ref would have stopped the contest before half-time had possession been the only qualifier. Sadly it wasn’t; ‘cos we are Sunderland and possession counts for bugger all. We turned around level but with Jones off knackered and Leadbitter on in his place, and things started to go wrong. Blackburn started to get into our box, ref Stiles showed his true colours, and Keane showed his inexperience. When we were awarded a penalty (far end, couldn’t see it that well, but it looked fair enough to me) Deano waved away Richardson, the man in form, to waste the chance. Perhaps the losing mentality of the last Premiership campaign is still in the lad’s psyche. When the same chance fell to the home side courtesy of what looked to my biased eyes like a walloped ball into the defender, there was the difference and it was 0-1. Yorke, just booked and well past the time when his tiring and already slow legs should have been replaced (Kavanagh, anyone?) knocked their lad over and even Stiles could find no reason not to send him off.

Wallace was replaced by Cole and Richardson by Waghorn, but Mr Andrew proved even slower than Yorke, and Waghorn was played wide on the right. What’s the point in that? He’s seventeen and a very promising inside forward. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I’m not.

The short version is that we had the lion’s share of the possession, neither ‘keeper was that busy, and the home side did what home sides in the Prem have been doing to us for the last three campaigns in that division – taking full advantage of what precious few chances we allowed them, while we failed to hit the target with what we created. There were mumblings after the end that this was the last chance for SAFC as far as many supporters were concerned. Maybe that’s a bit strong and a bit early in the season, but the season’s getting shorter by the week. Everyone but Derby seems to have player who has a match-winning moment in them (let’s watch Heskey on Saturday) while we haven’t yet found our saviour. It might just be Richardson, but he’s still finding his fitness. Jones might also be such a player, but should his injury prove of the long-term variety, that’s very bad news indeed and could well finish us. Sorry, but I’m back in the big black mood that was temporarily lifted by Saturday’s win. Get me a therapist instead of just pissed off.

Man of the Match: it has to be Richardson, who bossed the first half but was let down by those in front of him.

King Roy commands and we obey, over the hills and lose away. As a rather bluff Yorkshireman might have said, “It’ll take a bluddeh miracle t’gerraht this wun alive, Pat.”

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