There's a lot to shout about at the moment and the Sheffield Wednesdsay match was brilliant for many reasons, but one thing for me remains missing: the lack of individual chants for those players who've earned it. It's great to hear the Dan Neil chant and him receiving the credit that he surely deserves, but it comes to something when Shearer gets name checked in songs more than most of our individual players.
This was brought into focus for me at the Sheffield Wednesday game when Alex Pritchard, who was outstanding again, as he has been in recent weeks, received a well desrved standing ovation every time he came to take a corner, in lieu of him not having an individual chant. Obviously Pritchard merits the applause. It was respectful, but it felt like something from the 50s. Against Wednesday this was replaced later in the game by a tame: 'du-du-du-du, Alex Pritchard' ala 'Perfcto Allstarz'. We can do better.
Harking back to the mid to late 90s, a lot of the first team had their own chant: Perez, Ord, Ball, Agnew, Bridges, Phillips, Quinn and of course Reid. We need to get back to those days to give the lads who've earned it their own personal recognition and also to reinforce our unique support both home and away.
I'm not keen on suggesting new chants, as they'll probably be labelled garbage, but putting my money where my mouth is: for Pritchard, how's about 'You are my Pritchard...' to the tune of 'You are my sunshine...'? as was used for Solskjaer before his fall from grace. Or, for Nathan Broadhead (acknowledging we won't see him back for a while), '...they tried to take him back to Wales; they can try but they will fail; Nathan Broadhead Sunderland's number 9...', as was sung about Djibril Cisse.
Whatever the chants are, the lads are playing some great stuff at the moment, we're top of the league and we need to give them the name checks they deserve.
