OTD: LUKE O'NIEN SIGNED

On this day in 2018, Sunderland completed the signing of Luke O'Nien from Wycombe Wanderers. Nobody would have guessed it at the time, probably not even the man himself, but he has gone on to play over 300 games for the Lads in numerous different positions and has won two promotions plus an EFL Trophy during his time here.

O’Nien came through at Watford, before making his name in the EFL at Wycombe. In 2017, he was named Community Player of the Season, and helped Wanderers to promotion to League One the following year.

Following Wycombe’s promotion, and Sunderland’s relegation to League One in the same season, Jack Ross came calling for the energetic midfielder. It was a breath of fresh air- a young, enthusiastic midfielder from a lower league rather than the washed-up journeymen that came before O’Nien.

However, O’Nien’s debut couldn’t have gone much worse. He started in midfield next to the young Bali Mumba against a tricky Charlton Athletic side. The pair’s inexperience was clear for all to see, and O’Nien looked totally lost in his first match. He was hooked at half time, and he wasn’t seen regularly for a while after that.

When O’Nien was eventually reintroduced to the team, it was at right back. When Jack Ross asked if he’d ever played there before, O’Nien reportedly lied and said yes so he could get back into the team!

The makeshift fullback excelled so much at right back that he ended up being first choice in the position, and in the following summer Ross claimed that there were Championship sides who wanted to sign O’Nien in that position.

The following season, under both Ross and Parkinson, O’Nien played almost every minute for Sunderland. He continued to impress at right-back, but was unable to help Sunderland push for the play-offs as the season was curtailed with us finishing in eighth (our lowest finish in the Football League in history).

Then in the 2020/21 season, O’Nien really made his name as Mr. Versatile on Wearside. Amid Sunderland’s injury crisis, he filled in not just at fullback but also as a centre half! He even made it into League One’s Team of the Season despite playing in an unfamiliar position. We lost out in the play-offs at the semi final stage to Lincoln City but we did win at Wembley for the first time in 48 years as we beat Tranmere Rovers in the EFL Trophy final.

Prior to the 21/22 season, O’Nien extended his stay on Wearside. In a season that started with Lee Johnson we made a strong start to the campaign, finishing the year off in fashion with a 5-0 win against Sheffield Wednesday to top the table. Only four games later though, Johnson was sacked following the dismal 6-0 defeat to Bolton. In came Alex Neil and we made a late surge to the playoffs with a fantastic run at the end of the season, losing only one game in our last 14 of the regular season which saw us finish 5th.

In the play-offs Luke played every minute, including in the final. And in the final we needed his physicality against his old side, Wycombe. We had him playing in midfield with Evans and we controlled the entire game and finally got out of League One, accomplishing one of his initial goals that he had when he first came to us.

In the 22/23 pre-season he remarkably made Jose Mourinho furious in a friendly against Roma after he made a challenge that Jose didn’t agree with. After the challenge, Jose ran onto the pitch demanding Luke got sent off. Following the game Luke went to Instagram with his hilarious reply:

“Mrs: Shall we go to Rome for our Honeymoon?💍”

“Me: I think we will give Rome a miss for a while 🙅‍♂️🙈”

Some were unsure of whether or not he'd be able to make the jump up to Championship football but he proved the doubters wrong, playing in 46 games in all competitions as we finished in the play-offs once more, impressive for a newly promoted side. Even more so considering we lost our manager to Stoke City without much warning early on with Tony Mowbray coming in. Alas, we were undone by a lack of manpower (particularly in the centre of defence) due to injuries in the semi final versus Luton Town but we did put up a decent fight as we won the first leg.

Season two in the Championship wasn't as good, to put it mildly, as we stumbled ten places down the league to 16th and only six points off the bottom three after we fell apart post-January with Michael Beale and Mike Dodds taking charge after Mowbray was sacked.

The third installment was much improved luckily and he made some club history too as he became the player to play the most games at the Stadium of Light ever in December 2024. He also surpassed the 300th appearance mark, not many players do that for any club in the modern day and it's certainly rare for a player to do that after signing in the club's worst ever period and playing in practically every position bar goalkeeper. From a team perspective things were even better as we made an early bid for the title and automatic promotion under new boss Regis Le Bris before we tailed off slightly after a winless November and then occupied fourth place for the rest of the campaign.

Right up until the play-offs started, promotion was far from a certainty as we lost our final five games prior to kickoff away to Coventry City in the semi final first leg, the worst form ever for a team going into the Championship playoffs. Luke had almost a 100 percent attendance record as well, from scoring twice and assiting once in the first two games of the season all the way up until the crucial play-off games, missing just one game in the league and one game in the EFL Cup.

He played the full 90 minutes in the first leg as we won away to Coventry for the first time in decades, taking a slender one goal advantage back to the Stadium of Light. The defender then played the full 120 minutes in the second leg as our lead was undone in regular time before Dan Ballard headed us to Wembley in literally the last second of the game in extra time. He started in the final against Sheffield United but came off injured after just eight minutes following a collision in the box and was forced to watch from the sidelines as we went one goal down going into the break. Thankfully, we rescued it in the last fifteen minutes or so with Tommy Watson's final act as a Sunderland player being a strike that ended our time outside of the top flight, in fact the longest period in the club's history away from the highest league.

You could see him sprinting along the touchline as the second went in with his shoulder in a sling. After the full time whistle went he said he was refusing to go to hospital for the night as he wanted to celebrate, a well deserved celebration for him in particular. Now we're back in the Premier League, there are doubts once again whether he can make the step up especially since he will miss the first three games with injury. Don't rule him out though, he's proven us wrong before. If he doesn't and he does end up leaving, he'll be fondly remembered for being a great representative for the club with the fans and a character on the pitch. Remember him jumping on a player's back to stop him breaking away or kissing a Norwich City player during a confrontation?