Sunderland AFC

THE BEST OF 2023-24

Published

2 months ago

May 13, 2024

2023-24 can’t exactly have been described as a season of many highs, with it petering out into unremarkable obscurity after an early stage of much expectation. That being said, it’s not that surprising that when trying to pick the best games of the season that three out of the five of them happened in the month of September.

SUNDERLAND 5-0 SOUTHAMPTON

The season had not started in explosive fashion to say the least, we’d lost both our first home game to newly promoted Ipswich Town and our first away game to Preston North End (the contrast between playing Preston at the end of 2022-23 and the start of 2023-24 is a great summariser for the campaign as a whole) and in between the two we’d exited the League Cup unceremoniously at the hands of Crewe Alexandra. Form had picked up slightly since then though and we’d come back from behind to beat Rotherham United, with Jobe Bellingham’s brace being a highlight of the season; the game itself was not and we’d put in a good enough performance away to Coventry City to claim a point. Despite an upturn in our fortunes, few were confident for this clash with recently relegated Southampton. They were one of the pre-season favourites for automatic promotion and Russell Martin’s side had taken 10 points from a possible 12 in their opening four matches.

Taking the lead inside the first 60 seconds then wasn’t being anticipated that greatly but a good ball from Trai Hume and header from Jack Clarke did exactly that. The game was far from done though and more than a few of our fans were probably expecting the visitors from Hampshire to find the net themselves sooner rather than later. A cracking effort from Pierre Ekwah, outside the box and into the bottom right corner only a few minutes later, put some of those fears to bed that we wouldn’t be able to see out the game. The former West Ham man then scored a very similar goal, this time from a more difficult angle, on the cusp of half-time to give us a commanding 3-0 advantage. Any chance of a fightback for the away team was quickly nullified as Bradley Dack scored his one goal of the season to make it four within five minutes of the restart. To round off a great afternoon, Jewison Bennette showed off some great skill to spin round a few defenders before sending in a well placed cross that Chris Rigg was able to capitalise on to score the first league goal of his career. This game was expected to be a catalyst for us really kicking on to push for a top six finish and for a while it was.

BLACKBURN ROVERS 1-3 SUNDERLAND

Immediately after the win over Southampton, we travelled to London and beat Queens Park Rangers 3-1. There’s a solid argument for putting that game in this list, with Jack Colback being sent off and us coming from behind to win, but this one has been selected because Blackburn were a much more formidable opposition at the time. QPR looked to be falling into relegation without much fight and Rovers were aiming for a playoff spot, a little bit mad to think about now because the Hoops actually ended up finishing above the Riversiders. Following that win in the capital we journeyed to Lancashire looking to make it three wins from three but being truthful, most people probably would have taken a point before kick off. Jack Clarke got things up and running inside the first half an hour via a penalty but the home side found an equaliser within ten minutes through Harry Leonard. In first half stoppage time we retook the lead, Dan Neil profited from a corner. The midfielder did well to strike into the far corner and just over ten minutes from time a bit of Clarke brilliance guaranteed maximum points, drifting past the defence and goalkeeper before slotting home the third. There was a sense of justice at the final whistle, given that we’d missed out on anything from the last time we played at Ewood Park because of two goals that really shouldn’t have counted. It’s just a shame that when we hosted Blackburn we were nowhere near good enough.

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 0-3 SUNDERLAND

This was probably our most comfortable victory of the entire season, even more so than the game against Southampton, with the League One playoff winners never really causing much threat. Dan Ballard headed home a corner on the fifth minute mark and Clarke latched onto a fantastic ball from Mason Burstow (one of the few bright moments in what was a pretty torrid loan spell) sprinted forward a good few yards and unleashed a wonderful effort into the corner of the net to double our lead not long after. The third also came in the first half with Clarke scoring from the spot. The difference in both the Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday teams in the reverse fixture was totally night and day.

SUNDERLAND 1-0 LEEDS UNITED

In the immediate aftermath of the sacking of Tony Mowbray, a still controversial decision, interim boss Mike Dodds had quite a good time of things as he led us to wins in back to back home games against sides chasing promotion. This was the second of those two home games and the 2-1 win vs West Brom that came before this could have also been included but this game just beats it out because it reinforced the hope that we’d be able to maintain a push for playoffs even after the mixed form of October and November. Leeds were in fantastic form heading to the Stadium of Light and had won nine, drawn one and lost just one of their last 11 fixtures but a resolute performance from us saw us take all three points. A point would have been a very acceptable outcome but throughout the game we had the better chances with far less of the ball and our defensive work limited Leeds to mostly long range efforts. We took the lead late on with Jobe Bellingham heading home and Alex Pritchard getting the assist. Almost halfway into the season and we were sixth, unfortunately things never really picked up again after this to put it mildly.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 0-1 SUNDERLAND

Now our last best game of the season could have gone to a few games, there was the 2-0 over Preston on New Years’ Day, when a striker finally scored for us, there were comfortable wins over Stoke City and Plymouth Argyle at home and the best contender other than the trip to the Hawthorns was beating Cardiff City 2-0 away from home. Due to the reception Dan Ballard got from the Baggies’ faithful though, this victory felt a lot better than any of the other ones mentioned. Our season was practically over by this point and the pressure was certainly more pronounced on West Brom to try and lock in a playoff spot so a win for Sunderland wasn’t an expected outcome but with us keeping Leeds at bay at Elland Road only a few days earlier we had some confidence going into this one. We did well defensively throughout the game but our job got a lot easier when their top scorer was dismissed for a horror tackle on none other than Dan Ballard which was met with the reaction you’d expect from the home crowd. We swiftly took advantage of our one man advantage and Ekwah shot a lovely strike high into the net from a Callum Styles corner to give us the lead. This happened in injury time of the first half and that’s how it finished. This was our final win of the season, not exactly something that inspires confidence given that we had three games against teams all in the bottom half to round out the campaign.