Marked for Mark Watson
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Jul 2037
A fracture rules Jaydon Jones out for 66 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sunderland will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad6 Jul 2037
429 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market6 Jul 2037
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sunderland can pretend not to have heard.
Market6 Jul 2037
Burnley come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Sunderland did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad6 Jul 2037
Chemsdine Talbi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad6 Jul 2037
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Habib Diarra commits to Sunderland for another 2 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Jun 2037
A fracture rules Jaydon Jones out for 80 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sunderland will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market22 Jun 2037
Bournemouth come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Sunderland did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Chemsdine Talbi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Brian Brobbey falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad22 Jun 2037
The manager has not finished forgetting Chris Rigg's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Market22 Jun 2037
The Mark Watson conversation is coming
Everyone has stopped pretending: Burnley will make the call about Mark Watson this week. Sunderland have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Jun 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joseph Spencer
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sunderland lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad8 Jun 2037
A fracture rules Jaydon Jones out for 94 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sunderland will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad8 Jun 2037
Dan Neil has been here 16 seasons
486 appearances across 16 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad8 Jun 2037
“The easiest signature of my career.” Simon Adingra and Sunderland agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market8 Jun 2037
Add another name to the list: Burnley have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mark Watson. The answer from Sunderland has not changed — yet.
Market8 Jun 2037
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Sunderland will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 May 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joseph Spencer
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sunderland lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 May 2037
Enzo Le Fée in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sunderland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market11 May 2037
Only the photograph left for Mark Watson
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mark Watson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sunderland the goodbyes have quietly begun.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Apr 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Simon Adingra
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sunderland lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings13 Apr 2037
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.02 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match11 Apr 2037
No clean sheets in sight for Sunderland
8 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad13 Apr 2037
14 goals and a season average of 7.66. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Enzo Le Fée in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sunderland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market13 Apr 2037
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sunderland is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match11 Apr 2037
4 matches without a win for Sunderland
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Sunderland are no longer polite ones.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Brian Brobbey falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings13 Apr 2037
Marked 8.20 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Mar 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Simon Adingra
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sunderland lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad16 Mar 2037
14 goals and a season average of 7.70. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
Age has not caught Enzo Le Fée yet — 9.07
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market16 Mar 2037
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Chemsdine Talbi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market16 Mar 2037
Only the photograph left for Mark Watson
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mark Watson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sunderland the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Brian Brobbey falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match14 Mar 2037
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Enzo Le Fée. 3‑2 against Rotherham United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings16 Mar 2037
Ninety minutes of Chemsdine Talbi at his very best
Marked 9.21. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Sunderland.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Feb 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Simon Adingra
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sunderland lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match11 Feb 2037
Chelsea go through and Sunderland go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Player ratings16 Feb 2037
Age has not caught Brian Brobbey yet — 8.01
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market16 Feb 2037
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad16 Feb 2037
7 goals and a season average of 7.76. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Enzo Le Fée in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sunderland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market16 Feb 2037
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sunderland is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Brian Brobbey falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom16 Feb 2037
Wages eat 88% of everything Sunderland earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Jan 2037
Simon Adingra damages knee ligaments — 96 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 96 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match24 Jan 2037
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match24 Jan 2037
Whatever happens, Sunderland do not lose
13 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.79, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad26 Jan 2037
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market26 Jan 2037
Bruno Machado hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sunderland can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings26 Jan 2037
Aaron Spetale, 36, rolls back the years — 7.97
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.97 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad26 Jan 2037
10 goals and a season average of 7.63. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Chemsdine Talbi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.