Every Sunderland fan I speak to at the moment is just absolutely buzzing. Isn’t it great?
We’re all dying to talk about who is coming in, the players we’ve already signed, the new season, the new kits, the fresh lick of paint they’re giving the Academy and Stadium - everything is unbelievably positive, and in my lifetime as a Sunderland supporter, I cannot remember too many summers where that has been the case.
I don’t even think this is a case of me, a happy clapper, getting carried away either - we aren’t just the talk of Sunderland, but the talk of the wider footballing world. People who haven’t really clapped eyes on Sunderland for years now (unless it had been to comment on something negative, like the Netflix series or our stint in the third tier) are sitting up and taking notice of what is going on in Wearside.
I guess for us Mackems it’s a case of _“welcome to the party - where have you all been?”_ as we’ve watched this model and this plan develop over the last four or so years since Kyril Louis-Dreyfus took charge of our football club and promised to breathe new life into it.
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The things the wider world are waking up to - stuff like the fact we’ve got an exciting young team, our recruitment is eye-catching and we have ambitious people in charge to support a head coach who most clubs ought to wish they had had working for them - are not new to us. Most of us are and have been dyed-in-the-wool supporters of ‘the model’ and what we’re seeing now is the fruits of our labour, labour that was carried out during an eight-year stint outside of the top flight of English football.
Everyone expects us to go straight back down to the Championship, because apparently, no promoted team is capable of succeeding. After all, the last six did such a bad job of it, but we aren’t a normal club. I mean this with no disrespect, but we aren’t Ipswich, or Burnley, or Sheffield United, or Luton, or Southampton, or even Leicester - we are Sunderland, and we aren’t just coming to make up the numbers.
That much has been reflected in our exciting summer business thus far. Appointing a youthful, sought-after Director of Football to further expand our leadership structure was a bold and impressive early move, as was smashing our transfer record to sign Habib Diarra. Many other ambitious moves will follow, with Reinildo and Noah Sadiki all but confirmed as the third and fourth signings of the early stages of this window. Enzo Le Fée was made a permanent signing for a significant fee, and we’re chucking huge money at trying to acquire a goalkeeper, central defender and striker to really shore up the spine of the team. There’s no time to waste, so we aren’t wasting any. You just get the feeling that Sunderland’s upper echelons recognise that Premier League football cannot be taken for granted, and if we want to remain here we must be ruthless.
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Pre-season starts today and the players will return to the Academy of Light for the first time, and I imagine that will further ramp up the positivity around the summer ahead. We have new kits going on sale this morning, and Hummel have absolutely smashed it out of the park once again. No doubt it’ll be yet another roaring financial and commercial success for the club, who have finally recognised the importance of making decisions that place the club’s supporters at heart.
This is just the start, but the early signs are impressive. If you’re excited, good - enjoy it. Embrace it. Remember that feeling; savour it.
We don’t get many summers like the one we’re having right now and with trips abroad to come and some exciting domestic friendlies too, as well as two more kit launches and plenty more big-money signings, that wave of enthusiasm is sure to continue for a while yet - so ride it for as long as you possibly can. We’ve all bloody earned it!