Bellion cheers Reid as fans sing different tune

On the eve of Peter Reid's purported last stand, Aston Villa's visit to the Stadium of Light eight days ago, the Sunderland manager was asked what he thought about the constant newspaper speculation concerning his future. "Believe it or not, I don't read any of the papers," he replied. If that remains the case, it will have been a good week for Reid, one that will have fully cheered him up ahead of his visit to Highbury with his team this afternoon.

The 1-0 win against Villa came too late to stop the presses rolling at the Sunderland Echo, with three pages of letters in the Saturday-night Football Echo heaping vilification upon Reid. The main missive bore the headline "Reid must go!" and reached the conclusion: "Without question it is now time to give Peter Reid his cards." It was penned by an S. Vasey of Chester-le-Street.

Once upon a time, Sean Vasey enjoyed a fleeting pop career as a member of Simply Red and White, the group of Sunderland supporters who put "Cheer up Peter Reid" at No 41 in the charts. "We remember you as a Scouser dressed in blue – now you're red and white through and through," he sang, to the tune of the Monkees' "Daydream Believer".

Now, after 21 months of stagnation and stultifying football, like the majority of lifelong supporters who have followed Sunderland through considerably more thin than thick, Mr Vasey believes that Peter Reid's days with the red-and-whites should be through – as in finished.

Lilian Laslandes would no doubt agree that Reid's number ought to be up, although he is – strictly speaking – a Sunderland player. The one-time French international striker has been farmed out on loan to Bastia this season, with a view to a permanent move to the Corsican club, having failed to make an impression following his £3.6m move from Bordeaux last summer.

When he was loaned to Cologne in January, Laslandes blamed his poor form at Sunderland on having been given the No 7 shirt instead of one divisible by three. "Three has always been my lucky number," he said. "Nine would have been fine, or 33." Now wearing the No 9 of Bastia, Laslandes is back on the goals trail in France, with four from his first 10 games.

Last week he gave L'Equipe a rather different reason for his failure to hit the Premiership target at Sunderland. "I was recruited to play a game on the floor, but Peter Reid had only one tactic: the kick-and-rush," he said. "When I attempted to get an explanation he told me: 'You, the French, did not invent football. You can have nothing to say.'

"I wouldn't wish anybody to experience the humiliations and the wounds of self-respect inflicted on me in England. Now I am happy in my heart again. The life is simple: the games of petanque and cards before the football – the fishing, the friends."

The drinking too, perhaps. In July Laslandes was banned from driving for two years and fined £500 in absentia at Newcastle Magistrates' Court. He had been caught driving the wrong way down a one-way street at 4am, with more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system. "He hadn't been drinking for a number of hours and thought he would be safe to get behind the wheel," Jonathan Dunkley, his solicitor, told the court. "That clearly was a grievous miscalculation on his part."

It was clearly a miscalculation on Reid's part to pin any hopes of pushing for a European place last season on the hapless Laslandes. The Frenchman made a goalscoring connection just once in 13 matches – against Sheffield Wednesday in the Worthington Cup. Reid also miscalculated in his other major signings last summer. The £3.5m Argentine midfielder Nicolas Medina has yet to feature in a first-team game, and the £750,000 Swiss right-back Bernt Haas is currently on the transfer list and on loan to Basle. David Bellion, however, is a different matter, or so it would suddenly seem.

Signed on a free transfer from AS Cannes, the 19-year-old Frenchman made a handful of substitute appearances as a right-winger last season, but gave Sunderland a cutting edge on his full Premiership debut against Villa playing as a striking foil to Tore Andre Flo. He scored the winning goal that lifted the immediate pressure off Reid and produced a man-of-the-match performance in Sunderland's 7-0 Worthington Cup win at Cambridge on Tuesday, on that occasion ravaging from back on the right wing.

Bellion was in the Cannes academy when Patrick Vieira was in the first team, and his hero happens to be Thierry Henry. Not that the new darling of the Sunderland fans is certain to face his idol today, even if Henry recovers from the hamstring strain he suffered in Auxerre on Wednesday night.

Reid has fielded a rigid 4-5-1 formation away from home this season, plumping for dour damage-limitation ahead of any system which might accommodate such luxuries as attacking foils and flying wingers.

The Sunderland manager is certainly concerned about the harm that might be inflicted by an Arsenal team on a goalscoring roll of 47 Premiership matches. "I watched them against Leeds and they frightened me to death," he confessed. The good week might not have such a good ending for the manager of the fear-siders.