Jason McAteer claims Sunderland don't deserve to be in the Premier League after Chelsea game
Sunderland have been in fine form so far this season.
Ex-Sunderland boss Martin O’Neill has aimed a pointed jibe at former owner Ellis Short while discussing the positive impact that new captain Granit Xhaka has made on Wearside.
The Swiss international has quickly established himself as a fan favourite at the Stadium of Light, and has played an influential role in a stellar start to the campaign that has seen the Black Cats climb to fourth in the Premier League table with 17 points from their opening nine matches.
And in the aftermath of Saturday’s stunning 2-1 victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, O’Neill and his fellow pundit Martin Keown took the time to examine Xhaka’s impact in the North East - but not before the Northern Irishman had taken a shot at former Sunderland chairman Short.
What did Martin O’Neill say about Sunderland captain Granit Xhaka and former owner Ellis Short?
During an appearance on talkSPORT, when asked by Jim White about his love for the club, O’Neill - who was also a boyhood Sunderland fan - responded: “I still do, yeah absolutely, and I love it even more now that the old owner Ellis Short has left the football club, which is great. But yeah, it's a fantastic football club, has been for years and years - even when they were at the old Roker Park and I supported them as a kid and listening to their big football matches at a boarding school when I was 11 years of age...”
Turning his attention to Sunderland’s positive start and head coach Regis Le Bris’ insistence that Premier League survival is still the primary aim, he continued: “Well, when you've got that number of points on the board you feel as if your ambition might change a little bit but he's absolutely right to say this. The team has just got up this season, they've signed a lot of players, which was great news for them, regardless of whether it takes time for them to gel, and they've done that pretty quickly.
“But most importantly, the side that got promotion, if they'd not done anything about it, would not have been strong enough to have survived this season. So it's been great and the manager must get a great deal of credit, he's pulled them together and there's a great old atmosphere there back at the Stadium of Light, which I'm delighted to see because this it's a proper football club.”
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Ex-Arsenal defender Keown interjected: “This is where I want to make a shout out for Granit Xhaka here because when he was at Arsenal... look, there were one or two liked him, others didn't. But you have to say, I mean Bayer Leverkusen let him go, he was an invincible at Bayer Leverkusen... [Erik] Ten Hag was involved and let him go - that was a disaster but massive news for Sunderland.
“I see him on the pitch... If there was no sound, you'd hear him, he's barking instructions to everybody, he's telling everyone to calm down, keep the ball when we need to, get forward when we need to. I've never really seen a player so involved, so instrumental in a team. I think you get in the Premier League, you've got to have Premier League experience around you... You've got to fill the group with players that there's the know-how, because it's the next step.
“Now these [Sunderland] belong in the Premier League, five wins out of nine and it's a really good story. I see them, they've got two home games now coming up, they play Everton and they play Arsenal, and it's beautifully placed for them, isn't it? They get these two home games, the crowd start to go, it's just a re-emergence of their football club.”
Focusing on Xhaka, O’Neill added: “I think he's been fantastic at Sunderland, and all you have to do is listen to a couple of the younger players there talking about his influence, not only on the pitch but off the pitch as well, and it's one of those that you can have all the experience in the world, but if you arrive at a football club and not have the interest of the football club really at heart, that's a different issue.
“It seems as if he's really taken to this role and you're right, he had the experience at Leverkusen. You feel as if he's incredibly mature now as a player whereas the backbiting with the Arsenal crowd a way back some years ago... I've got the utmost regard for him and what he's doing there at the football club.”
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