Good Luck To Our Former Lads In The Championship Promotion Race!
Cards on the table: I don’t miss the Championship.
I don’t miss the rhythm of the forty-six game schedule, the often tense coverage of the red buttons on Aerial sportsthe attrition style of football or the incessant proclamations that Jack Rudoni is a future Ballon D’Or winner – and I certainly don’t miss the often laughable anti-Sunderland comments from Andy Hinchcliffe and Don Goodman. No, Don. We don’t feel sorry for Kieffer Moore. This was not the case then and it is not the case today.
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Perhaps it’s the result of being drunk on the thrill of Premier League football since August (once you’ve seen Rayan Cherki in the flesh, had the chance to see Omar Alderete bag Erling Haaland and then watched with pride as we completed the double against Newcastle, there’s no turning back) but as the 2025/2026 season heads towards what appears to be a conclusion exciting, it’s a real source of pride to see so many former Sunderland players involved in the Premier League title race. League.
At the time of writing, Ellis Simms – a somewhat underrated striker and a player I had a lot of time for during his brief time on Wearside – is a game or two away from promotion to the top flight with Coventry, and Dan Neil and Jack Clarke are very much in the box as Ipswich aim for a top two finish under Kieran McKenna.
Elsewhere, Alan Browne and Middlesbrough are fighting tooth and nail to stay in the pack; there’s every chance that Wembley heroes Alex Neil, Tommy Watson and Anthony Patterson could help bring Premier League football to The Den if Millwall can keep their cool until the end, and who’s to say a resurgent Ross Stewart can’t keep Southampton in the picture too?
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At this point it would be tempting to state concisely that “Sunderland really are that big and that’s why so many ex-players are fighting to join us in the big time” (to which people would be well within their rights to respond with the ‘get in there and talk about yourself’ meme), but more seriously, it’s just great to see so many of our old red and white prospects competing at the pointy end of the second tier – although I won’t see Sunderland kicking a ball in this league for a long, long time,
Stewart’s recovery from injury and rebirth as a dangerous Championship striker, for example, should come as no surprise.
Alongside Simms – whose recall to Everton was undoubtedly a turning point in itself as we targeted an unlikely promotion under Tony Mowbray – he moved easily into the second tier in 2022 and who’s to say what might have happened towards the end of this season had he not suffered an injury at Fulham?
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As for the two Neils, one should be classed as a modern-day Sunderland great and deserves another chance at promotion at Portman Road, while the other might have left unsavoryly but remains a very good Championship manager – while the Sunderland legacy of Watson, Patterson and Clarke needs no embellishment.
Of course, if two or three former Sunderland players celebrate their promotion in May, the question will be whether they have 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 into effectiveness in the top flight under Frank Lampard, and could a deal be struck with Millwall to give Patto a real chance in the Premier League if the Lions can emerge victorious in the playoffs?
Sure, you could say that’s the ‘natural level’ for these guys and why we decided to cut so many of them from the first team at the Stadium of Light, but I’m not entirely convinced by that.
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It’s true that for some players the game time just wasn’t going to be 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 are all talented guys and it would be great to see them confound the doubters and help their respective clubs realize their ambitions for this season.
Should that happen, there could be plenty of intriguing and perhaps long-awaited reunions on the cards for 2026/2027 – with their contributions to Sunderland’s own renaissance hopefully not forgotten.
