I’m annoyed.
Not solely at Saturday’s loss to Ipswich and the somewhat slapdash manner of the defeat (although that certainly raised my blood pressure and left me with a sense of “For God’s sake, what a missed opportunity that was”) but instead, it was a combination of mistakes made at the heart of the Sunderland defence and the zeroing in on one particular player in the aftermath that got my back up — and to be brutally honest, it also made little sense.
First and foremost, the Lads looked collectively
rusty at Portman Road.
There was no doubt about that, and the defensive solidity that provided the foundation on which much of last season’s endeavours was built seemed to be lacking.
Call it a classic opening-day fumble or attribute it to various external factors such as key defenders not seeing much pre-season action or possibly a lack of new faces, but the red and white backline wasn’t good enough against Ipswich and the two goals we conceded were poor from a team perspective, yet with depressing inevitability, one man found himself in the firing line when all was said and done.
The player in question here is Luke O’Nien and before we go any further, I’d like to lay out some bare facts.
O’Nien, a summer arrival during the dog days of 2018, has spent nigh on a decade at Sunderland.
He’s played for eight different head coaches (seven permanent and one interim), earning two promotions, one seventh-place finish in the Premier League and never falling out of favour during that time. Respect that, please.
I’m not here to blindly peddle pro-O’Nien propaganda and to wilfully gloss over the weaknesses in his game, but when I see such a wholehearted, dedicated and selfless footballer consistently hammered every time he misplaces a pass or makes a mistake (disproportionately to many of his teammates, I might add), I find it more than a little disgraceful.
Frankly, the whole “O’Nien is a liability” argument needs to be filed under Easily Debunked Sunderland Myths Of Our Time. It can be disproven with very little effort and has next to no basis in reality, and neither his fondness for motivational speeches and podcast appearances nor his upbeat, immensely driven personality should factor into that either.
Furthermore, the argument collapses like papier mache in a furnace when you put it under greater scrutiny. We’ve had countless ‘liabilities’ at this football club over the years; players that were either burdened with horrific attitudes or a lack of ability, and he’s not one of them.
Would Alex Neil, Tony Mowbray and Régis Le Bris — the three most successful Sunderland bosses of the past decade and hard taskmasters in their own right — have placed so much faith in O’Nien if he was considered not up to par? I think not.
Would he have lasted this long in such a high-pressure environment if he didn’t have the minerals to deal with setbacks and the talent to stand alongside teammates with greater technical ability? Not a chance.
It’s not a slight on the long-serving defender to say that when our defence is finally given a clean bill of health, O’Nien won’t start many games in the Premier League and will more than likely enjoy most of his game time in the shape of twenty or thirty-minute cameos — or if the worst comes to the worst, if and when injuries start to bite once again,
He has his limits, his role is clearly defined and I suspect he’d be fine with that.
Don’t confuse a player not being a regular starter with a player that doesn’t add value or isn’t a good enough footballer, either. O’Nien is a key figure within this squad and the next time he’s called upon, would it surprise anyone if he’s as solid as a rock? Not this writer, that’s for sure.
Against Ipswich, Dan Ballard was visibly off the pace, as was Omar Alderete when he entered the fray. This meant that O’Nien had to be more or less flawless if we were to emerge from the game with anything to show for our efforts. He wasn’t. He looked a little bit jittery — perhaps over-eager — and he made mistakes. It happens. He’s resilient and he’ll bounce back. That’s it.
Whether you agree with it or not, the fact is that the right to play Premier League and potentially European football is O’Nien’s reward for eight years of hard slog in a red and white shirt. In 2018, he brought a refreshing new mindset to a dressing room occupied for too long by wastrels and losers, and it’s been central to Sunderland AFC’s rebirth.
He’s earned every accolade and moment of glory along the way, and I suspect a rough ride at Portman Road would barely crack the top ten most challenging situations in which he’s found himself during his Sunderland career.
Furthermore, the notion that he’s a glorified competition winner or someone that should’ve been ditched long ago is insulting to both the player himself and the coaches that’ve relied on him so heavily over the years. It’s a deeply flawed argument and no matter how often it’s rehashed, it doesn’t become any more valid.
