‘Why is it never us celebrating? Why is it never us?’
The dismayed words of one Sunderland supporter, in the aftermath of that last-gasp defeat to Charlton Athletic in the 2019 League One play-off final at Wembley, summing 40 years of hurt on the banks of the Wear in two short sentences.
But on Monday night at Hillsborough, there were tears of joy, rather than dejection. Pride, rather than pain. Success, rather than sadness.
And it felt fitting that it was Jack Clarke and Patrick Roberts – two players who have found themselves plumbing the depths of England’s third tier after a miserable couple of years (sound familiar Sunderland supporters) – that gave this proud old club reason to believe heading into Saturday’s decider against Wycombe Wanderers.
With 93 minutes on the clock, Tottenham Hotspur loanee Clarke squared up to his full-back and rolled back the years, back to the days when he was tearing Championship defences apart like wet tissue paper in the white of Leeds United.
Breezing past the Sheffield Wednesday backline, Clarke served up Roberts’ stoppage-time winner on a silver platter. It was Clarke’s most telling contribution in senior football since he joined Sunderland. His most telling contribution since joining Tottenham as a £9 million 18-year-old in the summer of 2019.
And it could hardly have come at a better time as far as the Black Cats are concerned.
Sunderland defeat Sheffield Wednesday
“Jack has got good quality. He can take the ball, he can dribble, he can go past people,” beams Black Cats boss Alex Neil, via The Chronicle. “Those kind of players are really useful to have in the team and he delivered the moment we needed.
“The hardest thing always is to get really creative players to work extremely hard. But our lads have got an appetite and an understanding of the greater good. The rest of their teammates demand it, I demand it, and they demand it of themselves.
“You don’t win anything without hard work and graft – that’s a pre-requisite – and then, as for the rest of it, if you’ve got quality, that’s a bonus. We’ve got that quality, and we also put in the hard work and the graft.”
There’s never been any doubts about Clarke’s ‘quality’. This was a guy who was changing Championship games all on his own at the age of 18, in the heat of a promotion battle. Clarke’s work ethic out of possession has come on leaps and bounds since ill-fated spells at QPR and Stoke City, however.
His dazzling display against Wednesday was, in many ways, a ‘coming of age’ performance.
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“Simply outstanding,” writes the Sunderland Echo, giving Clarke 9/10 for his efforts. “Dug in for (left-back) Dennis Cirkin all night and kept providing an outlet when Sunderland did get on the ball.
“A coming-of-age Sunderland performance.”
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