After writing regularly about Dan Neil for four years and quite possibly boring Roker Report readers senseless in the process, this could very well be the last article I pen in praise of him, therefore I have zero intention of holding back or trying to be subtle.
Why? Because I love him as a footballer.
I have tremendous admiration for him as a Sunderland ambassador, and that’s a stance I’ve always been proud to take. It’s also a fact that Neil’s rise to prominence represented a true success story
for the club’s youth development pathways — something that should never be downplayed.
If the sight of him in an Ipswich Town jersey makes you feel uncomfortable, reflective, a little sad or perhaps relieved that his long and at times frustrating goodbye to Wearside has finally reached its conclusion, that may be offset by the fact that as a veteran of over two hundred appearances in the red and white stripes and a double Wembley promotion winner (once as skipper and the first homegrown Lads player to do so since Raich Carter), he leaves with his legacy set in stone.
A class act on the field, both in League One and in the Championship, a true team man, someone with whom we all would’ve swapped places in a heartbeat and the very personification of the “local boy made good”.
However, in the quest for Premier League progress, he unfortunately found himself as the odd man out in a radically overhauled Sunderland midfield, but I for one believe that he has top flight potential and hopefully that’ll be fulfilled at some stage in the future.
A move to Suffolk and to Kieran McKenna’s promotion-chasers is by no means the worst he could’ve made and the transition will doubtless be made easier by the presence of his old friend Jack Clarke, currently ripping it up at Portman Road.
As for his exit itself? Necessary, all things considered, even if many of us may wish it might’ve been different and the likelihood of signing another midfielder this week feels like a fifty-fifty call.
Recruitment at Premier League level is a great battle between opportunity and ruthlessness; between appreciation of what’s gone before and what needs to happen in the future. Neil’s departure proves this but it’s not a matter of blame — it’s merely a byproduct of where we are as a club and the fact that he needs to be playing regularly at this stage of his career.
When watching Neil over the years, he never struck me as a footballer driven by ego, hubris, careerism or any of the negative qualities that so many who preceded him seemed to espouse.
Instead, I always felt like I was watching a lad who simply played for the joy of playing, for whom representing Sunderland AFC was the fulfilment of a dream and wearing the club crest was a matter of deep-seated pride.
I still believe that now, despite the fact that his departure has been framed in some circles as a standoff-come-wrangle and that some would claim that he cynically ran his contract down in order to engineer a more straightforward move, but you know what? Even if that were the case, that would be his right, and we have to accept it.
Everywhere you look, they say that footballing romance is dead and that the coldness of the game has sapped it of any true element of goodness or decency. In response, I say, “Absolutely not”.
Who would’ve thought that the kid sitting in the stands at Wembley in 2014 would’ve eventually captained his club to Premier League promotion on that very same pitch eleven years later?
Like fellow Academy of Light graduates Lynden Gooch and Elliot Embleton, Neil was there through the transitions, the highs and the lows, and plenty of memorable days as we embarked on the kind of rebuild that few of us could’ve ever comprehended. He rode the good times with his teammates, stayed strong through the dips in form and an iconic victory over Sheffield United was the pinnacle.
For an academy prospect to break into the Sunderland first team and play such a huge role in our elevation from the abyss to the top table of English football is no small achievement, despite what the naysayers might claim, and that’s to say nothing of Neil’s tremendous footballing ability, which is not to be overlooked and will serve Ipswich very well in their quest for promotion.
Often the subject of some very harsh criticism on social media — flak that I often felt was borne of jealousy — Neil always stood out as a highly capable midfielder at Championship level and although it’s a source of sadness that we won’t get to see him enjoying the fruits of his labour as a Premier League footballer for Sunderland, nobody will ever be able to detract from what he achieved at the Stadium of Light, and that’s the one major positive as we bid him farewell.
From his wide-eyed expression of joy at Dennis Cirkin’s winner against West Brom in 2023 to his own sublime goal against the Baggies later that year and eventually his proudest moment as skipper, Neil’s Sunderland career was memorable, notable and highly successful.
Good luck, Dan. Thanks for everything and hopefully we’ll see you again someday.
