What’s next for Dan Neil?

Photo by Mark Scates/SNS Group via Getty Images

Will he sign a new contract? Will Xhaka take the armband? Will Neil be moved on? Is his status as an Academy product critical to our ability to recruit, if he is to be sold, under PSR? Is Dan Neil good enough for the Premier League?

Only the club and Dan Neil know the answers to some of those questions, but apparent interest from Everton and West Ham in January suggests that others see the player who lifted the Playoff Trophy in May as being good enough to perform in the top echelon of English football.

For me, it is impossible to think of Dan Neil without bringing to mind the image of him as a teenage supporter in the stands at Wembley, at the 2014 Capital One Cup Final. Just over a decade later, he led our promotion-winning team out onto the same turf. He is living the dream we all had.

In the decade since those heady days, Dan Neil has endured the trials and tribulations that we all, as Sunderland fans, have experienced. The descent to League One should have provided the perfect opportunity for Neil to come to the fore at his boyhood club.

But life doesn’t always work out like that. As each season starts, I always try to get the name of a young player who will have a significant impact that year when I buy an away shirt. Ballard, Rigg and Mundle are in my collection in blue, pink and white from the respective seasons, so I am quite proud of my record! The yellow League One away shirt bears Neil’s name and number 24 – but it was far from the season it promised to be for the future skipper.

Dan Neil should have been linking up play in his best position as an advanced midfielder. An injury to Corry Evans changed all that. A threadbare squad lacked a replacement for the experienced Irishman. Instead, Neil found himself shoehorned into a role that he was never ideally suited to.

Photo by Mark Scates/SNS Group via Getty Images

There was criticism aplenty as Neil sought to anchor a side which included a mix of players from the sublime, Alex Pritchard and Nathan Broadhead – to the ridiculous, Leon Dajaku and Jermain Defoe’s last dance. It was only the arrival of Alex Neil that finally saw the team establish enough structure to succeed in the playoffs – with Dan Neil consigned to the bench, as Evans returned to skipper the side to promotion.

As the first season back in the Championship got underway, no cover for Evans was signed. The dour bald Scot scuttled off to Stoke, to be replaced by Tony Mowbray. Flashes of Dan Neil’s attacking abilities were glimpsed as we led against a much-fancied Burnley team. But when Evans was sidelined by an ACL injury that finished his season, it was Neil who again dropped into the holding role, this time on a permanent basis.

It is a position he has occupied ever since, taking on the role of team captain at the beginning of last season. I have written previously about how he was regularly the player that coaches from Neil to Le Bris have relied upon to take instructions on the touchline and communicate to his team-mates. For that reason alone, his elevation to skipper was unsurprising to me.

But it was not without difficulties – his late concession of a penalty at Watford was just one occasion where not just his role, but his inclusion in the team was questioned by some elements of the fanbase. The angry flames that had followed his red card against Sheffield United two years earlier were quick to reignite.

Despite all that, it was local lad Dan Neil who led his childhood team out at Wembley in May, and it was Dan Neil who lifted the Championship Playoff Trophy.

Photo by Mark Scates/SNS Group via Getty Images

So what now? The confirmation of Enzo Le Fée’s permanent signing has been followed by the arrival of a flurry of players of a far higher calibre than many of us could ever have expected. Le Fée has been joined by Habib Diarra, Noah Sadiki and now, excitingly, Granit Xhaka. Competition for midfield places will be intense.

With a few notable exceptions, the players who revelled in the glory of the Wembley playoff victory now face a real battle to earn a starting berth in the Premier League.

For Dan Neil, it is a completely new challenge – to prove that he can play a part in a squad that must compete with some of the best teams in Europe. It is also an opportunity – what better education could there be than turning up at training alongside a player of the skill and experience of Granit Xhaka?

I know that the view I am about to express will not be universally popular. There are those who have already written Dan Neil off as not good enough.

But I want Dan Neil to sign a new contract and fight for his place in the SAFC squad that competes in the Premier League.

I want Dan Neil to play in a role that suits his skill set, not a role that he has to fill because there is no one else to play there. In my view, he is far better suited to the attacking midfield role on the left – the position from which he combined with Jack Clarke to take Burnley apart in the first half a couple of seasons ago. He has the skill and vision to play in balls that break the lines for Mayenda and Isidor to exploit. His ability to strike from distance has been hugely curtailed by his defensive duties, but he still has it in his armoury.

It is a position that Le Fée has predominantly occupied in the pre-season run-outs, but the demands of a Premier League season require at least two players in each role. If Enzo’s time on the pitch can be better managed across a 38-game season, where the defensive demands on him will be far greater, then everybody wins. A midfield three selected from Xhaka, Le Fée, Diarra, Sadiki, Rigg and Neil, with the others being rotated in as needed, will give Régis Le Bris tactical flexibility and remove the need to flog some of our best players for 90 minutes every week.

Dan Neil was the local lad who stood in the stands at Wembley in 2014, who played his part in getting us out of League One, and who led us back to the Premier League. So I want Dan Neil to play his part in establishing his childhood team back in the Premier League. Why?

Photo by George Wood/Getty Images

Because, in a world where PSR favours ‘the Big 6’, where even our neighbours are struggling with the challenges of being ‘the richest clurrrrb in the wurrrld’ as they are gazumped time and again for their targets, and where newly promoted teams are automatically expected to be relegated, there is something wholesome and refreshing about a home-grown talent who can succeed in that environment.

Most of all, I want Dan Neil to succeed because he is one of us – if he wasn’t out on the pitch, he might be sat next to you in the Stadium of Light. As much as I am excited as the club’s spending passes the £100m mark, I want us to be an environment where local talent can still thrive.

From my earliest days as a Sunderland fan, there has always been a local connection between the fans and some of the players – from Jim Montgomery, Richie Pitt, and Micky Horswill, through the likes of Shaun Elliott, Barry Venison, Richard Ord, Micky Gray and Michael Bridges, all the way through to Jordan Henderson and Jordan Pickford, and now Neil, Rigg and Patterson. Those players have emerged from our own communities. They represent our city and our club with an emotional bond that no one born beyond the banks of the Wear can quite match.

When the season opens against West Ham, I don’t expect that Dan Neil will be in the starting line-up. But Premier League football is now very much a squad game, and I hope that Dan Neil will be part of the squad that establishes Sunderland AFC back at the top level of English football.

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