Sunderland, Roy Keane, mouth pops and a slap-bass sting

Things haven’t gone right for poor old Sunderland for quite a while now. Since 1939, in fact, when Germany invaded Poland to set off an unfortunate chain of events that robbed their league-and-cup-winning superstar Raich Carter of what would surely have been his best years and culminated in his transfer to Derby County. Sunderland’s immediate post-war ‘Bank of England’ spending spree produced a trophy haul of no trophies, and while the 1973 cup win provided brief respite from the relentless misery, things quickly became so grindingly dull again that even the 1981 arrival of national treasure / people’s sunbeam Ally McCoist couldn’t cheer anyone up.

So it’s fair to say they’ve been trending steadily to the point we find them today. Upon somehow managing, back in 2018, to get themselves relegated to the third tier for the first time in their history without any of Lawrie McMenemy’s help, the club – and indeed most neutral observers – blithely assumed they’d be back in the One Below The Big Time before anyone knew it. But here we are, years later, two-thirds of the way through a fourth consecutive League One season, and currently on a run of form – a 6-0 defeat at Bolton followed by losses to bottom team Doncaster and struggling Cheltenham – that is hinting at making even a play-off berth look like a pipe dream.

Having briskly cashiered Lee Johnson through the door marked Away The Lad, Sunderland have been desperately seeking someone to knock heads together quicksmart. To this end, they asked Roy Keane to reprise his largely successful stint at the Stadium of Light back in the day. However, contractual negotiations between Keane and owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus broke down, farcical scenes presumably brought to an end with