Cards on the table: I don’t miss the Championship.
I don’t miss the grind of the forty-six game schedule, the often-ropey red button coverage on Sky Sports, the attritional style of football or the incessant proclamations that Jack Rudoni is a future Ballon D’Or winner — and I certainly don’t miss Andy Hinchcliffe and Don Goodman’s often-laughably anti-Sunderland commentary. No, Don. We don’t feel sorry for Kieffer Moore. We didn’t back then and we don’t now.
Perhaps this is a result of being drunk
on the thrill of Premier League football since August (once you’ve seen Rayan Cherki in the flesh, been fortunate enough to witness Omar Alderete pocketing Erling Haaland and subsequently watched on with pride as we completed the double over Newcastle, there’s no way back) but as the 2025/2026 season heads for what looks like a thrilling conclusion, it’s a real source of pride to see so many former Sunderland players involved in the race for the Premier League.
At the time of writing, Ellis Simms — something of an underrated striker and a player I had a lot of time for during his brief spell on Wearside — is within a game or two of top flight promotion with Coventry, and Dan Neil and Jack Clarke are very much in the box seat as Ipswich aim for a top two finish under Kieran McKenna.
Elsewhere, Alan Browne and Middlesbrough are fighting tooth and nail to keep themselves in the mix; there’s every chance that Wembley heroes Alex Neil, Tommy Watson and Anthony Patterson could help to bring Premier League football to The Den if Millwall can hold their nerve down the stretch, and who’s to say that a reborn Ross Stewart can’t keep Southampton in the picture as well?
At this stage, it would be tempting to pithily declare that “Sunderland are just that damn big and that’s why so many former players are fighting to join us back in the big time” (to which people would be well within their rights to respond with the ‘get in there and make it about you’ meme), but on a serious note, it’s just great to see so many of our one-time red and white prospects competing at the sharp end of the second tier — even if I’d happily not see Sunderland kick a ball in that league for a long, long time,
Stewart’s recovery from injury and rebirth as a dangerous Championship striker, for instance, should come as no surprise.
Alongside Simms — whose Everton recall was undoubtedly a turning point in itself as we targeted an unlikely promotion under Tony Mowbray — he took to the second tier with ease back in 2022 and who’s to say what might’ve happened towards the end of that season had he not fallen victim to injury at Fulham?
As for the two Neils, one should be classed as a modern-day Sunderland great and deserves another crack at promotion at Portman Road, whereas the other might’ve walked out in unsavoury fashion but he remains a seriously good Championship manager — whilst the Sunderland legacies of Watson, Patterson and Clarke need no embellishment.
Of course, if two or three former Sunderland players are celebrating promotion come May, the question will be whether they’ve got what it takes to step up and make an impact in the Premier League.
If as most fans agreed at the time, Clarke was frequently deployed in the wrong position during Ipswich’s 2024/2025 season, would it be different next time? Could Simms’ qualities translate to effectiveness in the top flight under the management of Frank Lampard, and could a deal be cut with Millwall in order to give Patto a genuine crack at Premier League football if the Lions could emerge from the playoffs as winners?
Of course, you might say that this is the ‘natural level’ for these lads and that’s why we decided to phase so many of them out of the first team picture at the Stadium of Light, but I’m not entirely convinced by that.
It’s true that for certain players, game time simply wasn’t going to be plentiful enough on Wearside and in Watson’s case, his departure came before we knew what was going to happen in the 2024/2025 playoffs, but they’re all talented lads and it would be great to see them confound the doubters and help their respective clubs to achieve their ambitions for this season.
Were that to happen, there may be plenty of intriguing and possibly long-overdue reunions on the cards for 2026/2027 — with their contributions to Sunderland’s own rebirth hopefully not forgotten.
