Earlier this week, I was asked to take part in a Roker Report roundtable piece on how I thought the club would fare in its next three matches. Quite frankly, all of our ducks seem to be aligning rather nicely, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we could claim seven or even nine points from those games.
But, throughout writing these heady words, I had this little voice in my ear, saying, “divn’t be daft, soft lad, this is Sunlun you’re talking about.” And there’s the rub. As Sunderland
fans, we’re so used to the shite that when the good times come, our first thoughts are: it won’t last; we’re bound to end up on our arses, and that this is, indeed, Sunderland. Good things never happen to Sunderland. To some extent, all football fans have similar feelings about their football club. But I think, as a fanbase, we can genuinely claim to have trudged through some of the worst shite a set of football fans has had to do. I won’t repeat editor Gav’s memorable soliloquy, written just after the play-off final win. For those who witnessed [all of the shite], this is for you. But I think he could have written twice, or three times as much, and it still wouldn’t cover all the misery we’ve been subjected to over the last eight years.
When Kyril Louis-Dreyfus took over in 2021, many fans were suspicious. ‘He’s in it to make a quick buck’ was a common opinion — an opinion which could be forgiven given the grifters who were in charge before the Swiss man took over.
The careful, pragmatic way he has installed his team has been slow and deliberate. We were told that he had a plan to be in the Premier League within five years, a target they beat by a year.
When the club began visibly to fall apart under Ellis Short, he installed the wrong people in important roles. People who were unsuitable. People who made disastrous decisions.
This neglect has taken a long time to rectify, but the decisions KLD has made and the people he has put in place have made this club — our club — a force to be reckoned with again.
I suppose I should get used to writing about the successful things that are happening to our club, because the groundwork has been done for our club to lift off again.