Page 21 - 370167 LP253351 A Love Supreme Magazine - A5 48pp (Issue 260) v2

DAN NEIL
BY DANIEL MCCALLUM
He may not be the most legendary name in this list, but in recent years Dan Neil has been one of the shining lights in Sunderland’s academy. He has already played an important part in
our League One promotion campaign, and this season Neil has looked comfortable as a Championship midfielder.
Whilst recent local lads like Pickford and Henderson moved on to bigger and better things (and rightly so; they’re obviously Premier League quality) Dan has, so far, stayed at Sunderland and become a firm fan favourite. This is despite strong rumours of interest from Aston Villa and Burnley in January 2022: “So when there was rumours, I wasn’t really interested. Because my only goal was to do everything I
can personally to help the team to get this club promoted.”
Being a boyhood Sunderland fan always makes it that bit sweeter when he’s doing well, and there’s arguably more empathy from supporters when local lads aren’t doing so well. There have been times this season where he’s gone into his shell a bit (see Burnley, where he lost control of the midfield after they scored). But in the big games, the likes of Dan Neil know exactly what it means to the supporters.
Neil used to get the ALS bus to away games with his mates when he was a schoolboy. Even when he wasn’t playing for Sunderland, he would go to every match and loved watching the lads. You can see his passion whenever he plays and it’s great to see him going mad whenever he scores.
Many have described him as the ‘next Jordan Henderson’ and I think those comparisons are perfectly valid. In fact, Dan’s range of passing
and composure on the ball is arguably better than Henderson’s when he was at Sunderland. When Jordan came through, he was full of energy and clearly had a bright future. But question marks were raised about his ability on the ball, whereas it’s pretty obvious that Neil, while he probably isn’t as physical as he should be, has all the raw attributes to be a top player. The physicality can come with hard work and time spent in the gym.
This season Neil has shown great maturity to manage the step-up in quality, although there have been a few hairy moments that are of course going to come as he continues to learn. Even when Alex Neil left for Stoke, Dan was able to adapt to our new gaffer Tony Mowbray very quickly and scored his first Championship goal against Burnley. It was
a great moment that put us 2-0 up at the time, and the SoL erupted. We were all buzzing for him, as we knew the hard work he’d put in to be able to compete at this level.
Neil is still only 20, and has the world at his feet. We always seem to do well when local lads are playing
in the first team, so hopefully the likes of Dan Neil, Elliot Embleton and Anthony Patterson can keep on progressing and help move the club forward in the right direction. It’s players like these who become childhood heroes for the next generation of fans and show that there is a pathway from playing as a youngster to representing your boyhood club in front of 40,000 Mackems every week.
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