As 2024 wends to its inevitable close, it strikes me that I have scarcely written about Sunderland AFC this year. That, in the wider scheme of things, is not newsworthy. Despite occasional delusions to the contrary, no one is sat with bated breath awaiting my musings on whatever fate has befallen the club recently. I am, perhaps like you, just another face and (quietened) voice in the crowd.

Of course, we are all the centres of our own universes, so on a personal level the realisation feels notable. Wisely or stupidly, I spent much of the previous decade writing and talking about Sunderland to anyone that deigned to read or listen. For that to wither to almost nothing across the last 12 months marks a sizeable shift in my behaviour.

It is not for a broader loss of interest in writing. If anything, I have written more this year than I did last, and especially when it comes to football. Across the last year I have penned thoughts on the topics of changing regulation in Brazilian football, a seismic presidential election at FC Porto and the latest financial statements of Manchester City, to name just three.

Some of the drop-off can be explained by apathy. In the first half of this year that apathy was directed at Sunderland AFC itself; my sole article on the club in 2024 (other than this one, and four paragraphs of prediction back in August) arrived three weeks into January on the back of a shamefully embarrassing episode overseen by the club’s hierarchy. That, a miserable latter half of last season and the feeling those in charge had generally given up was hardly a cocktail that got creative juices flowing.

Apathy also arrived in respect of the mediums through which opinions on Sunderland could be expressed. Twitter, or X, or whatever, has rapidly transformed into an online representation of Hell itself. As a result, my own desire to litter the platform with pre-match, post-match and everything else-type missives about the state of the club has waned.

Yet I still have an account there, and even disillusionment with it doesn’t explain the decline. Indeed it’s fair to argue apathy shouldn’t have reared its head at all since early August; this has been, as I’ll cover more clearly soon, a better first half of the season than anyone could have predicted before it began. Despite that, were some poor soul tasked with poring over my WhatsApp messages over the last decade (and how heinous a crime would such punishment follow?), I’d wager they find I’ve tapped and blabbed about the club less in 2024 than ever before. Friends and family are doubtless overjoyed.

A critic might suggest it’s precisely because of the better than expected season so far that my thirst to write has dried up. The proponent of that argument would posit I and some others find it easier and more natural to whinge than wax lyrical; after all, writings over much of the last 10 years have tended to follow lows rather than highs.

At the risk of being branded a liar or in denial: that’s not it either. Some of the loss of interest is circumstantial – life, increasingly, gets in the way – but the honest truth is that the loss of interest in writing about Sunderland isn’t reflective of a loss of interest in Sunderland. Rather the past five months have aroused greater interest and enjoyment of the football played by the club than in many a recent year. Going to the match has been cherished rather than a chore. Watching nice football is enjoyable, winning more so and the combination of both, a regular occurrence with the current side, an even more delightful experience.

As we sit here at the halfway stage of the Championship season, Sunderland have lost just three of 23 games. In April and May they lost three consecutive games to end a season, so to say the last few months have marked a stark turnaround for the better is an understatement.

At the outset of the current campaign we were in possession of an extremely young squad and a manager who it had taken the club a troublingly long time to appoint. Regis Le Bris brought with him a reputation of working with youngsters but also, in his most recent and only other managerial job, a relegation with FC Lorient. That they went down with one of the most porous defences in France hardly augured well given our own distinct leakiness in the first half of this year.

And so what followed opened eyes both on Wearside and beyond. Cardiff City were dispensed of with ease on the opening day, Sheffield Wednesday even more comfortably a week later, and by the time the third weekend of the season had been completed we’d also outplayed – and beaten – promotion favourites in the form of Burnley.

Winning to nil could hardly continue forever but it’s not unfair to say we’ve now played every team in this division once and, other than Leeds United, not looked clearly worse than any of them.

Of the other contenders at the top, we’ve lost an extremely tight affair at the allegedly excellent Sheffield United, beaten and nullified free-scoring Middlesbrough, and just yesterday came one lapse away from a victory at Blackburn Rovers. The renewal of acquaintances with Burnley in January will be interesting given they’ve now firmly found their feet, but to date the only teams we’ve lost to are Watford (unbeaten at home, like ourselves), Sheffield United (see above) and, erm, Plymouth Argyle (just don’t, eh?).

If results have been enjoyable then the style they’ve been achieved with has been more so, especially given what we had to put up with in the months preceding. The days of Michael Beale and Mike Dodds feel but a distant memory this season. Under Le Bris, we are an exciting, attacking outfit, and in Dan Neil, Jobe Bellingham and Chris Rigg we boast surely the outstanding all-English midfield in the country right now. That their combined age is younger than most houseflies makes that all the more remarkable.

Bellingham in particular has been superb and it is easy to see why people rush to compare him to his rather more famous brother. He is not, nor will he ever be, Jude, but what he is is a young man growing with each passing week and, as last week’s winner against Norwich City proved, one increasingly capable of turning second-tier matches firmly on their head. His progress has been a delight to watch; we can only hope his minutes are managed more carefully than last season.

Alongside him, Rigg is a superstar-in-waiting, the kind of player that makes you emit noises which cause your wife to come bounding into the room to ensure the TV is still tuned to football. His goal against Middlesbrough stands out but to watch him is to remember why you started watching football in the first place. While there are discussions to be had about the scope of Sunderland’s current owners’ ambition, the argument is pretty much moot when it comes to Rigg. Basically: enjoy him while he’s here.

The third member of that triumvirate also happens to be the team’s current captain and, though some mightn’t care to hear it, our best player across the last month. Dan Neil has come in for plenty stick this season, some merited and some not, but to see him take a position that clearly isn’t his own and grow so assured within it is to be reminded of how good a footballer he is. In some ways Neil suffers from the remarkable talents of the two starlets alongside him. It is easy to forget Neil himself has only just turned 23 years old and is still nowhere near his peak.

If our midfield is exciting then the rest of the team hasn’t been too bad either. Luke O’Nien has proved many a doubter wrong during his six years as a Sunderland player and it is with no little shame that this author admits to having been one too. “No team will compete for promotion from the Championship with Luke O’Nien at centre-half” were, I believe, the exact words once uttered. How laughable they’ve been made to look this season. O’Nien has continued his uncanny knack of figuring it out as the standard around him improves, and any half-season review that doesn’t acknowledge just how excellent he has been isn’t worth the click.

Rolling through a player-by-player analysis of the first 23 games would take time neither you nor I have to spare, but suffice it to say there have been more good performances than bad. Wilson Isodor, a real, live striker (they exist!), has scored several goals that sit alongside Rigg’s first touch on the orgasm-ometer; Romaine Mundle stepped effortlessly into the shoes vacated by Jack Clarke in the summer; Chris Mepham could probably stop a ballistic missile with a well-timed interception; and, when fit, Dennis Cirkin might just be the best left-back this side of the Premier League.

For all that, this remains a squad that is overachieving. There were reasons people feared we’d struggle before the season commenced, and though that has been proven wildly pessimistic those reasons remain at least partially present. Isodor’s arrival plugged that gaping hole at the head of the team, and Aaron Connolly’s helped too, but to date Isodor’s goals return has reflected the fact he’s clearly been playing while on the verge of exhaustion for weeks on end. After a run of five goals in nine games a few months ago, yesterday’s deft backheel was his first in eight.

Neil, as we’ve mentioned, has taken time to grow into a role not naturally his, a situation only made necessary by our complete lack of anyone else to play there. Alan Browne looked an okay enough squad player until injury ruled him out for the better part of two months, but it’s patently obvious he isn’t a defensive midfielder nor has he been signed to play as one. Salis Abdul Samed is and has been, but there’s now justifiable cause to wonder whether our loanee from RC Lens actually exists. Rumours Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has sent a search party on a mission to the Bermuda Triangle remain unconfirmed at the time of writing.

The feeling I and others had in pre-season, albeit one that leaned too heavily into pessimism, was that Sunderland’s current first-team could compete at the top of the division but behind it there was insufficient depth to maintain any sustained challenge. The latter hasn’t proven exactly correct – we are, after all, just four points shy of the top two – but the gist of it appears to still have some truth to it. Indeed, the first-team has been a match for just about anyone; problems have only arrived once that first-team has had holes prodded into it. 

Certainly Le Bris seems to share the general sentiment. Despite impressing us all, the one constant and justified criticism of the manager is his seeming refusal to ring the changes mid-game, rarely utilising the five substitutes at his disposal. Without him explaining otherwise, it’s difficult not to think it’s because the manager himself feels and knows the back-ups are a sizeable step down from the main men.

What happens next month in the transfer market could shape the season but one thing to remember is that, financially, fifth in this division is probably par for a club like ours this season. That statement is driven by the fact four clubs benefit from the might of Premier League parachute payments this season. Three of them are currently above us in the league table, with only Luton Town’s curious season to date stopping a clean sweep.

Whether that’s acceptable in the wider scheme of things is another matter entirely. For much of my Sunderland-supporting life (and granted I turned the ripe old age of six under the premiership of one Peter Reid), the club finishing any lower than third in the second tier was quite literally not the done thing. Unfortunately, things have got a lot worse than that in recent years, which is why competing at the top end of the Championship and feeling it’s an overachievement isn’t cause for pitchforks right now.

How long that can remain is open for debate, especially when the inevitability of our best players leaving us continues for as long as promotion remains elusive. Clarke’s departure has been shockingly unnoticed, thanks to Mundle, then Tommy Watson, and generally because the goals have been shared around the team a lot more. Ross Stewart’s sale looked a good deal when it happened and is cause for Southampton to report us to Trading Standards now. Losing the likes of Rigg and Bellingham, should it happen with us still in the second tier, might be harder to bear.

Not that promotion will necessarily remain elusive. A top two push always looked difficult and still does from here, even with that gap at just four points. Yet missing out on a play-off berth from this vantage point would be a genuine disappointment. It would also be a surprise. There’s little evidence this young team suffers from the crises of confidence that plagued it in early 2024, with the current run of five consecutive games of coming from behind to either win or draw a perfect case in point.

Much to be pleased with, and much to take optimism from. Why, then, my lack of desire to write about it online? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact the whole season to date has proven, accidentally or otherwise, all the more enjoyable for not engaging with the surrounding noise. Wins are fun but perspective remains; not every win has to be the greatest performance since 1912. Losses (few as they’ve been) are crap but, without the need to think of something interesting to say about them, the chance for that to manifest as an all-encompassing problem doesn’t arise.

Don’t get me wrong, I still talk and think about it all plenty enough. Post-match debriefs in the pub or the car still happen. But there they remain, hanging in the air and swept away by morning, not etched onto the World Wide Web for eternity. That impermanence of thought is freeing in many ways, if only because it means you don’t have to hold fast to the daft thing you said last week that’s already been proven wrong.

What will be hard to prove wrong is to say the season so far has seen expectations out-performed and, at its core, some bloody good football played by some bloody good footballers. After plenty recent years of drudgery, that’s something to celebrate, whether we do it out loud or within.

Merry Christmas. Here’s to more of the same in 2025.