Snippets from 365 on SAFC and Bruce

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Sunderland

The good news is that if West Brom are safe on 39 points, Sunderland are probably also out of realistic danger on 38. They also have a relatively easy run-in to finish the season with: Birmingham (a), Wigan (h), Fulham (h), Bolton (a), Wolves (h), West Ham (a). At some point over the next five weeks, they will surely collect the handful of points still required to be absolutely sure of safety.

Yet the avoidance of relegation will hardly be much of a cause for celebration at a club that began the year in sixth position amid talk of qualifying for Europe. They have collapsed and there is nothing edifying about a collapse. Injuries have conspired against them and the sale of Darren Bent set them on a tailspin from which there has been no recovery, but their failure to muster any sort of positive response to their travails bodes badly for the future. The best of Sunderland's time in the Premier League might already be in the distant past.

Steve Bruce

If he wasn't a successful player, would he still be a Premier League manager? And if the correlating relevance of a successful playing career to a career in management cannot be established, then why is he still in a job?