PRESEASON RECAP

Sunderland’s U21s travelled to Hebburn to play Gateshead and our senior squad were hosted by South Shields to kick off our first preseason back in the top flight since 2016. The club are also set to jet off to Portugal this week to face two high quality sides in Sevilla and Sporting CP.

Originally, our now annual double-header versus non-league Gateshead and South Shields was set to go ahead as normal, with the senior squad split between the two fixtures and supplemented by academy players. Less than 48 hours before kickoff at the Gateshead International Stadium was due to go ahead however, we were informed that issues with the pitch meant that the first fixture had been moved to Hebburn’s stadium and it would now be the U21s rather than the proper team playing. Perhaps that slightly disrupted the preseason workload in RLB’s eyes but it wasn’t a great miss from a fan perspective, the view at Gateshead is awful because of the distance between the stands and the pitch and it reduced the journey between the two games to just two metro stops. The only thing was people had now been charged £20 for an U21 game, although refunds were offered.

The game itself ended 2-2, with Trey Samuel-Ogunsuyi scoring our first goal after a trialist gave the opposition the lead and only a few minutes later Joe Anderson fired one in from a distance to turn the game on its head. The National League side found an equaliser though, the fixture’s third goal in just eight minutes. There were no goals in the second half, with us putting out a separate XI in each half.

There were a few senior players involved, all of which have been told they can leave the club, they were Blondy Nna Noukeu, Joe Anderson, Ian Poveda, Nazariy Rusyn, Jay Matete, Abdoullah Ba and Luis Hemir. Anderson gave a good account of himself, Poveda hit the post at one point and Rusyn’s workrate was decent. Hemir was unable to replicate his goalscoring form we’ve seen from him in previous preseasons but he did come close to scoring once or twice. In terms of the academy lads, Ogunsuyi played well but unfortunately Felix Scott went off injured. Scott was on fire towards the end of last season, finding the back of the net three times in his last three U21 appearances and four times in four for the U18s (plus two assists for good measure), so hopefully it’s nothing too serious.

In between the two fixtures the metro was understandably rammed, a few Mags complained about the lack of space but that’s expected, generally they didn’t represent themselves too well with a few of them wearing their tops at the match versus Gateshead and I’m pretty sure one of them got kicked out for causing a scene. Of course, contrary to what some of them may tell you, Gateshead is not part of Newcastle and Hebburn certainly isn’t. South Shields have a rule against wearing the shirts of teams who aren’t playing at their ground, so (as far I could see) it was a Mag-free zone at the second match.

The main event of the day was the main squad travelling to South Shields and, as expected, it was a comfortable victory, Shields weren't really able to ever threaten. It was sold out completely, so getting a good view of the action came at a premium but financially it would have been fantastic for the sixth tier club. It was played at a slower pace than the last two meetings between the two sides, the last two years it’s rained so it would have been slightly cooler. Wilson Isidor still got us off to a quick start at least, scoring within the first minute. Towards the end of the opening 45, Mundle and new signing Diarra linked up really well for the second goal. Similarly to the first half, the second half got off to a brisk start with Milan Aleksić coming close a few times before eventually scoring. It then petered out before coming alive again in the last ten minutes or so, as Ahmed Abdullahi scored late on to cap off the day.

It was encouraging to see some of the fringe players get on the scoresheet and with us putting out two different teams for each half there were some academy players involved as well. Timur Tuterov and Jenson Jones both started initially, with Ben Middlemas and Zak Johnson joining after the break. Jenson Seelt started for the first time since April 2024 and Niall Huggins returned from an even longer absence going all the way back to December 2023. It was also Abdullahi’s first run out for the senior side and he played well. Mayenda was his usual energetic self and Diarra looked really good.

I suspect we’ll see all of the senior players who played versus Gateshead leave on permanents and then some of the fringe players involved at Mariners’ Park leave on loan deals. The likes of Triantis will likely be given the whole of preseason to try to earn a place in the team after an encouraging loan spell north of the border last term. We still haven’t seen most of our new signings in action yet, more reason to look forward to Portugal.

Overall, it was an enjoyable day out, with the games not being affected by poor weather, as they have been the last two seasons, and both fixtures having a good atmosphere. The most important thing is that both Gateshead and South Shields would have made a bit of money and our players got a good work out with none of the senior squad getting injured.