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OTD: DANNY BATTH DEBUT

Born on this day in 1990 is ex-Sunderland centre back, Danny Batth. The defender arrived in January 2022 and was a big part of our promotion-winning side that finally escaped League One and was our player of the season as we finished inside the play-offs for a second season running.


Batth was born in Brierley Hill, in the West Midlands. He joined local side Wolves at just 15 years old, and would go on to spend ten years with the club (including a few early loan spells to Colchester United and both Sheffield United and Wednesday). He was a consistent figure at the back, and played a big role in Wolves’ Championship-winning team who finished on 99 points back in 17/18. Strangely enough it was the same season we were relegated to League One. But Wolves were unable to beat us, picking up just one draw in the two games against SAFC.


However when Wanderers got to the Premier League, Batth fell out of favour under gaffer Nuno Espirito Santo. He was loaned to Boro, where he played 13 games under Tony Pulis at the start of the season. The loan was cut short in January though, before he was sold to Stoke for a fee of £3 million.


He was very well-respected at Stoke, and had an instant impact. Playing 17 times in the second half of the season, he helped shore up the defence and kept eight clean sheets. He showed great leadership when Nathan Jones almost got Stoke relegated, and was a huge part of Michael O’Neill’s plans as they avoided relegation.


In January 2022, with Batth dropping out of the team due to a lack of pace and his age catching up with him, he had six months left on his contract. While many believed he could have joined another Championship club and played regularly, he opted to drop to League One and help Lee Johnson at the time take Sunderland up.


He made his debut for the Lads in a solid 1-0 win at home to Portsmouth. We thought it was a huge result at the time, as we’d just came off the back of: A 3-3 draw at Wycombe (where everyone had Covid and we should have called the game off), a 3-1 hammering by Lincoln at the hands of Chris Maguire, and a disappointing draw with Accrington Stanley who equalised after having a man sent off. It really was a bizarre run of bad results, in keeping with the ‘streaky’ tag that followed Lee Johnson like a bad smell. It turns out that the win against Pompey was a false dawn, as we went to Bolton the following week and got smashed 6-0, with Batth scoring a comedy diving header into his own goal.


Batth, signing in January, had lost his new manager by February and everyone expected the season to tail off. It looked like Batth was a journeyman centre back who’s legs had gone, and couldn’t keep up with the pace of the English game anymore. Alex Neil came in, and actually didn’t play Batth at first. In fact, the experienced defender missed out on Neil’s first eight games in charge. But he came back in for our 1-0 win at Gillingham, and would play regularly as we charged to the play-off final.


In 2022/23, back in the Championship, Batth's Championship experience proved vital to us clinching sixth place and had he not been injured going into that play off second leg against Luton, it's entirely possible we'd have been promoted to the Premier League. His height to defend those two corners we conceded from may have been enough to see us through to the final on its own. There's not much point speculating though, and Batth deserves praise for what he did do during last season rather than talking about what he could have done had he not been injured. He was our player of the season for a good reason. There were plenty of criticisms directed towards Speakman when it emerged that we weren't going to offer Batth a new contract and were allowing him to leave for more game time elsewhere.


He ended up at fellow Championship club Norwich City but game time came at a premium. Batth was limited to just 19 matches all season, only eight of which were starts. His season would once again end in playoff disappointment, as Norwich were knocked out at the semi final stage to Leeds United, although he didn't actually feature in either leg beyond sitting on the bench.


The defender's contract expired at the end of the season and he joined up with Blackburn Rovers. He's already played more games for his new club than his last one. Probably not coincidentally then, the Riversiders have gone from nearly being relegated last season with one of the worst defensive records in the league to currently sitting in the playoff spots (at the time of writing) with one of the best defensive records.



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