I recall the first time that I lost a little faith in the loyalty of footballers like it was yesterday.
It was January 2011 and as myself, my father and my brother returned to Dublin after our trip over to the previous day’s Wear/Tyne derby at the Stadium of Light, my phone flashed with the news that Darren Bent had requested to leave Sunderland AFC in the amid interest from Aston Villa.
As I was only a buck-toothed, lanky sixteen-year-old, my experiences with the opposite sex were minimal if non existent
at this stage, meaning that my obsessive nature with anything to do with Sunderland ensured that the highs were certainly high but the lows were like death by a thousand cuts.
The news that Bent wanted to leave Sunderland was like a personal death in the family. I pondered why and was left puzzled and bereft by the news.
With his constant tapping of the Sunderland crest when he scored and the kissing of the badge, Bent charmed us fans and now was leaving us high and dry. The fact that it was for a poor Aston Villa team made it feel like I was cheated, chewed up and spat out.
How could I be so foolish?
The days after he completed his move led to me experiencing more feelings than you would see in Disney’s Inside Out. I was sad, delerious, dismissive and angry where the angry emotion resulted me in contemplating burning my ‘Bent 11’ home strip.
Eventually, like any bruised heart, time is a healer and I moved on to new obsessions like Asamoah Gyan, Jermain Defoe and I even had a brief love affair with James McClean due to his Irish connection. However, as the saying goes ‘once bitten, twice shy — it was never the same again with any of these players as time has increasingly shown, there’s no loyalty in football.
The past ten days or so have been somewhat chaotic for Sunderland fans ever since Granit Xhaka’s links with Chelsea emerged.
Xhaka has taken plenty of heat on social media, with many supporters questioning his loyalty and commitment, while others wondered whether everything he said last season was meaningless given his apparent desire to reunite with his former manager, Xabi Alonso.
For me, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
As a thirty-one-year-old man, the world appears a far more cynical place than it did to the impressionable, Darren Bent-obsessed sixteen-year-old I was fifteen years ago. The reality is that loyalty in football has become increasingly rare and supporters probably shouldn’t expect players to place fans’ interests at the top of their list when considering their futures.
Like any of us, Xhaka has a family to think about and career decisions are rarely made for one reason alone. Personal ambition, family considerations, financial security and professional relationships all play a part. The truth is that Xhaka probably did want to join Chelsea.
In his typically brazen and confident style, Fabrizio Romano reported that Xhaka was extremely keen on reconnecting with Alonso at Chelsea before subsequent reports emerged that Sunderland had no intention of selling the player and that the Swiss international remained committed to leading the club’s push into Europe.
Can both of those things be true at the same time? I think they probably can.
Fortunately for Sunderland — and perhaps unfortunately for Xhaka — the club held all of the cards. A lengthy contract placed Sunderland in a strong negotiating position and it was always unlikely that Chelsea would be prepared to pay the sort of fee required for a player entering the latter stages of his career.
From my perspective, supporters should perhaps place less emphasis on loyalty when it comes to footballers.
Like anyone else, players will usually do what they believe is best for themselves, their families and their financial futures. The likelihood is that Xhaka wanted the move to Chelsea, but it’s equally likely that remaining at Sunderland leaves him in a very good position too.
The days of one-club men such as Jamie Carragher at Liverpool — or even our own Luke O’Nien at Sunderland — are becoming increasingly rare. Football is a ruthless business and both clubs and players will always act in their own interests when the opportunity arises.
Perhaps that’s the lesson I should have learned when Darren Bent left Sunderland back in 2011. The players were never really ours to begin with — we simply get to enjoy them while they’re here.
