Right. This is the shape of the business you work for.
It is a failed, ******-up business.
Unless you guys understand that,
you'll never ******* make it in this world.
This was ******.
And it is over as far as Sunderland are concerned.
After ten consecutive seasons in the Premier League,
they have been relegated.
It's a new chapter for the club.
If we approach it with the right manner, promotion. Automatic. Win the league.
Makes a mistake under pressure.
And they've scored.
- A myriad number of problems. - Where's it gonna drop?
Too many people at the club that don't give a ****.
He's a fortunate boy to still be playing at the football club.
- He scores! - Scored again.
Absolutely pathetic. We're sick of it.
So you piss off.
It's a lot of pressure. No other way to describe it.
You can **** off with your phone!
This is the most intense crowd in the whole country.
It's terrifying.
Sunderland is a massive, massive footballing city.
We're not talking about Watford or Cambridge.
We're talking about a working-class city,
and the main talking point is Sunderland Football Club.
Hammers it into the bottom corner.
Unhappiness abounds.
This club went almost exactly 12 months
without winning a single game here.
No.
Grayson out! Grayson out!
Sunderland AFC has this evening parted company with manager Simon Grayson.
I think Chris will be a major milestone
in the history of Sunderland Football Club for years to come.
All of my friends, especially the ladies, are absolutely delighted.
A fragmented, disillusioned, disunited team.
Just constant turmoil.
Misery at the Stadium of Light as Sunderland were relegated
for the second straight season.
- Well done! - Well done, mates.
Well done on destroying the club.
Mate, hold on. Whoa.
Just another sickening blow, innit, really?
Do you not think the fans have some right to know what's going on with the club?
Who are these new owners, Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven?
You'll see us. I'll take charge of the football club.
That piss-take party stops now.
The spiral just went down and down and down, you know?
We need to get a plan, and we got to get a plan quickly, haven't we?
Deal after deal after deal after deal,
where Sunderland have been absolutely shafted.
This football club is gonna kill me.
A bit of turmoil and a bit of turbulence.
Out of the rubble starts to come change.
Come on, lads! Come on!
Oh!
Come on, lads.
Concentration.
Morgan has given Sunderland the lead!
Drops then...
Goal!
Chris Maguire in the 62nd minute!
Sunderland are through to Wembley.
I really do think I've got me club back.
Sunderland is emotionally tough.
Win this game, and Sunderland get promoted.
When it's good, you are absolutely invincible.
But when it's bad...
it is a place of despair.
Oh no!
Charlton have scored.
There's no way back for Sunderland.
It means a second season in League One.
Why is it never us celebrating?
Why is it never us?
♪ On the river Where they used to build the boats ♪
♪ By the harbour wall The place you loved the most ♪
♪ I can see you there alone ♪
♪ But oh, you know ♪
♪ I'll be there ♪
♪ Soon ♪
♪ All your life You worked your fingers to the bone ♪
♪ You worked hard For every little thing you owned ♪
♪ That you gave away for years ♪
♪ As if you'd known ♪
♪ They were calling out ♪
♪ But if you could see me now ♪
♪ And if you could see me now ♪
♪ I hope that I'm making you proud ♪
♪ Proud ♪
Honestly thought we'd get promoted straight back.
And it just didn't happen.
Sunderland Football Club, it's... it's like a roller-coaster, man.
You're up, you're down, you're down, you're up.
Of course, Methven and Donald sold the club.
Dreyfus took over the club, and he's a multi-billionaire.
One of the richest men in Europe's took over the club.
It's all going tickety-boo here.
But he's only 23,
so nobody knows what's going to happen.
Oi, do you reckon we'll get Luis Suárez from Nacional?
- Speak to him about it. - I am.
So I know Juan Sartori since a few years.
They want Haaland, Mbappé, and Jude Bellingham,
so get the check ready.
We met in the Maldives,
on a tiny island, where the staff used to play football.
And I decided to join in, and he decided to join in, so...
And then we just kept seeing each other
to play football in different parts of the world.
So basically, I phoned him up just out of curiosity
to see how... how things are going.
He mentioned to me that the club's on sale
and if I'm... if I'm... if I'm interested, to take a closer look at it.
That's when I really saw the size and the... and the magnitude of the football club
and... and the huge potential it has.
If you associate age with wisdom, then it's natural to wonder
how the youngest chairman in English football
will get on at Sunderland.
Kyril Louis-Dreyfus is in his early twenties,
but he's the new boss in the boardroom at the Stadium of Light.
Sunderland being out of the Premier League
now for six or seven years
and dropping into League One
is not a testament of a club doing well.
With a young man running it,
that will need to be given some proper guidance and real-world experience
about how the world looks in English football.
He may have a big bag of Daddy's money behind him,
but he also needs someone
with football nouse to give him some guidance
and to be ensuring that the decisions he makes are the right ones.
At University of Bolton Stadium, Nick Barnes and Gary Bennett.
- Good afternoon, gentlemen. - Good afternoon.
It's the midway point of the season,
and every game is now critical.
Only the top two clubs in the league will gain automatic promotion.
Sunderland are just holding on to 2nd place.
And with Bolton in 15th, a win today is not only expected,
but it's essential if they're gonna keep up their push for promotion.
Great atmosphere. And you've gotta commend the Sunderland fans.
They have filled up the South Stand, pretty much.
♪ Sunderland! Sun... ♪
And Sunderland, of course, will be in yellow and blue.
Lee Johnson's got options, got creative players there,
but the foundations have got to be there
in regards of defending.
Long and direct from a Bolton perspective.
There's Charles! Oh, it's gone all the way in!
Oh!
It's a calamitous start for Sunderland.
Two-nil.
And they've got a third!
Too easy for Bolton.
That's a-- Oh, it's an own goal!
Fucking hell! What's going on?
♪ Sunderland get battered Everywhere they go...♪
Sunderland fans, they're already streaming for the exit.
Bollocks.
Oh, it's six!
It's Bolton 6, Sunderland nil.
Their biggest defeat in eight years,
and their biggest defeat at the third level of English football.
Disastrous day for Sunderland and for Lee Johnson.
Well, I have to obviously start by making a humble apology. Erm...
I'm so upset.
It's the worst game of my career, that's for sure.
And, uh, I don't feel like people deserve it.
I don't feel like the fans deserve it, of course.
Uh, I feel for the staff, you know, that work every minute of every day,
and how hard they work at the AOL to provide for the players and myself.
And we've really let them down today.
Welcome along to the Wise Men Say podcast.
Still drowning my sorrows from yesterday.
Did we wanna see somebody after that game
look like they were about to burst into tears?
Just unforgivable, really.
Six-nil, couldn't believe it.
Players-- At one point,
the players just didn't even look as though they wanted to play.
- It was just weird, wasn't it? - Yeah, it was this weird day.
As usual, it's like a total emotional roller-coaster.
'Cause at Christmas, you're sitting second.
So you're thinking there's every chance we're going to go up automatically,
then... then we fall off a blinking cliff.
It's just unbelievable.
How are you?
- Kyril, lad, all right? - How are you?
I was extremely worried.
And really, there was a lot of pressure mounting.
The match performance
did not give me the comfort that we were gonna get promoted.
You should not lose by those scores with a team like we had.
Something is wrong,
and sometimes it's a message to the people who make those decisions.
But it's not now. It's been three, four, five matches
insisting on something that doesn't work.
We've been seeing this coming slowly.
So I said to myself,
"We're not gonna make it. We need to try and change things."
Now to major news from League One.
Sunderland have sacked Lee Johnson as head coach
following their six-nil thrashing at Bolton.
The manager has lost his job.
Give me a percentage of how surprised you actually are with this.
We've dropped six points from the winning position.
These are the things the owners have looked at
when they've made this decision.
They will almost certainly have somebody lined up,
given the way it's been done.
Nobody knows where it went wrong with Lee Johnson. It just...
It happened that quick.
It was like, oosh, doosh... Gone.
- Five, six, seven, eight... - Three, four, five...
Lee Johnson gave me everything, really, as a new platform
to start my football career again, especially at my age,
And I've got nothing but good things to say about him.
Five, six...
And personally, I thought, "Ooh."
"I don't know if... I don't know if they've made the right decision here."
That's what I thought. Especially with being, what, third in the league.
I know we lost six-nil to Bolton, but football can change very quickly.
We can start winning games again.
And I just-- I'm very, very unsure on-- on the decision they've made.
But...
Well, it's been a roller-coaster seven days
at the Stadium of Light since last weekend's catastrophe.
They've got rid of Lee Johnson. and they're sitting in third place.
But when that decision was made,
I thought, wrongly, that they had somebody lined up.
That's-- That's the only way I could see that making sense.
We've got to get out this year.
Any sort of consistency gets you up this division though.
Aye, exactly.
The majority of Sunderland fans thought we were too big for this league.
- We are. - There's nay such thing.
- This is our lowest point ever in history. - It is. It is.
- It can't really get any worse. - Look at the last ten years.
We've had about a new manager every six months?
- Aye. Sleeping giant. - Sleeping giant.
Been asleep for a while, haven't we?
- Been hibernating. - I was gonna say.
- In a coma, ain't we? - We'll see what happens today.
Ha'way, lads!
A lot of talk. 17 games left.
If you're gonna get one of the two automatic promotion places,
you've got to win the majority, if not all,
of those 17 matches. And this is the first of them.
This is a critical game against the team who are bottom of League One.
Sunderland are without a manager,
so today, Mike Dodds is in charge as caretaker boss.
Ooh!
Winchester plays it over the top here. Griffiths is in the penalty area.
With his left, scores in the 22nd minute for Doncaster Rovers.
Down here.
Oh and two-nil, Rowe scores.
Unbelievable.
I'm not surprised, Nick. I'm telling you now.
- Lots of questions.
- Not many answers at the moment.
It's a bad defeat for Sunderland. And if they don't go up this season,
it's not just a disaster for the team and the fans.
The entire city suffers.
Other than me family and me friends,
Sunderland is the only other constant in me life.
It's been there since the second I can remember,
and it'll be there 'til the day I die.
No matter what happens,
you can't say anything else but Sunderland is everything.
It's a one-club town.
So, if Sunderland are doing well, then the town tends to be doing well,
and the atmosphere is good, and people are happy.
If the club are doing badly, then the town is doing badly,
and people's mental health gets affected.
People are depressed.
When I get in the water,
the cold water, it's just such a release.
It's so cold
that you're not--
you haven't got time to think about, like, the stuff that's on your mind.
The stresses and strains,
whatever you've got going on at the minute.
Your survival mode kicks in.
You get taught from a wee age, "Oh, just get on with it."
That's a sort of "man up" scenario, isn't it? You know what I mean?
Our city's built on industry, and that's what we are, aren't we?
- We're just-- - Graft.
We're... We're a product of our, uh, environment.
You know, hard, cold.
As you lads know, I suffer pretty badly with mental health issues.
And things like having a bit of a community...
and whether that's I have to get in the sea,
or I need to go to the next match.
I want to see who scores the next goal.
And because I've been brought up with just going to the match,
and it's in me blood,
there's something somewhere that just drags you back from the brink.
We've had some lean years, like the last few years in League One.
But for us,
it's something you can, like, throw your hope into.
Daddy, daddy!
Just three days after their defeat to Doncaster,
and Sunderland come up against Cheltenham away,
still without a manager in place.
Big challenge tonight, this game for Sunderland.
Dodds comes out to further discussion with Phil Jevons, as Etete finds May.
Oh, and then scores.
Cheltenham Town have beaten Sunderland 2-1.
It's a third defeat in a row for Sunderland.
It's heaping pressure on Kyril Louis-Dreyfus,
who needs to appoint a new manager.
The fans want answers. The fans want someone in place.
And the other issue is this, Roy Keane.
The whole thought of Roy Keane coming back is an appetizing one for all of us.
One thing is certain. If Roy Keane comes back,
there will never be a dull moment.
Of course, everybody's gone Roy Keane mad.
Roy Keane, where are ya?!
Sunderland's conversion from relegation candidates in the autumn
to champions in the spring.
Great story this, isn't it? Sunderland fans will be excited.
Looks like Roy Keane could be on his way back as manager.
I feel like he could do it again.
With the squad we have, he could do it again.
He would kick some arse.
I find him funny, in all honesty, like when he's on Monday Night Football.
He's got a good perception of football. Been there and done it.
I wouldn't let him on the bus afterward. Get a taxi back to Manchester.
I would be swinging punches at that guy.
You do your job.
Clearly, quite an intimidating character.
Lots of speculation linking you with the Sunderland job.
I've got no control over that.
So, uh, no comment.
Back down through.
And work hard to keep these engaged the whole time through.
Good, and then... Yeah.
So we're gonna go eights. Yeah.
- How's that feeling? - Good.
It was the first pre-season game, I fell over, put my arm down.
As my left arm hit the ground, it's just popped out.
I was in agony.
And the physio's just kind of come on quickly.
Uh, kind of tipped me over and just pulled down.
It's just gone... and just gone back straight into place.
And you're just gonna go-- Yeah, through your fingertips.
Just lift those two weights, okay?
So just reset for me. So basically...
So after your first one, there's an 85% chance of a re-dislocation.
But the season was about to start, so we kind of thought,
"All right, what do we do?"
Uh, we didn't have time to have three months out, you know?
The gaffer actually turned around to me and said, "I need ya."
- Yeah, doing okay with that? - Yeah.
So I said, "Let's play on then."
My shoulder coming out became normal.
I was going through games now in survival mode.
To pick up the points, put it back in, let's go.
I had people trying to pull it out at corners.
Their manager was telling people to target me.
That was probably the final straw for me.
I needed the surgery.
I'm all done!
Probably one of my lowest moments was,
you know, I couldn't-- couldn't hold my little girl.
And I couldn't play football.
That's when the injury really hit me hard.
I sometimes came in, people asked, "How you doing?"
I said, "I'm great."
But I wasn't.
I just broke down in the basement.
As a footballer, you get dropped, you get told to work harder.
You fall over, you get told to get up.
When I got injured, I just said, "Right, just keep going."
And I think the biggest thing from what I've learnt
is that I think sometimes we need to stop.
Okay, the breaking news is that Roy Keane
is no longer in the running for the Sunderland job
after the two parties couldn't come to an agreement.
Yeah, Hayley, it's not the news Sunderland supporters wanted to hear.
But that move for the Irishman broke down last night.
Everyone wanted Roy Keane back.
So it was like, "Oh my God, here we go again."
I'm so, so sick of it.
Roy going into Sunderland with this owner,
who's finding his way around the football world--
Irrespective of how much money he's got,
he's a young man, and you can't buy experience. We've all been there.
Erm, you've gotta learn your trade.
We need a manager in charge.
Whoever does go through that door,
players have gotta react to that manager as soon as he does walk through there.
The Roy Keane potential at Sunderland
played out much more in the media
than it really did in conversations that we had in the club.
The second we did make the change with--
I knew that there was gonna be criticism in the moment.
But the only thing that I tried to do
is to make the decisions that I feel are the right ones for the football club.
I think Roy Keane will have been fun, definitely good for the Netflix series,
but maybe we had a third season of disastrous finishing.
I mean, I always thought, and I say as well,
when things are not going well,
it's really, really difficult for the players to continue playing.
When you are younger, when you are not an insider,
when you come from a... a different situation,
people look at you with doubt and suspicion.
Getting out of League One,
some people say it's probably the toughest league out there.
And you immediately have the thoughts,
"One more year in League One. What does it mean for the people?"
"What does it mean for the players? What does it mean for us as owners?"
So it's always nice to be a little bit of an outsider.
To have something to... to prove.
And he will prove by results.
You're gonna win, huh?
Go, go, go! Quick!
Being at this football club in League One,
there's that expectancy to go up.
And when you've got that pressure of delivering for a full city,
it can be difficult at times, especially when it's not going well.
Obviously, I played in all those seasons
where we'd been relegated, and... and I felt all that pain.
And I always wanted to achieve that goal
of trying to get the club back in the right direction.
Coming over as a ten-year-old boy and then a 26-year-old man,
it's a long time.
It's all I've kind of known, is playing for Sunderland,
and this is the last six months of my... of my contract at Sunderland.
So it's...
It's a chance to try and earn a contract here
and get back in the team and play well.
'Cause I've got... I've got two kids, I've got a young family.
I've gotta make sure I look after them.
Sometimes, you think about, "Is this where I'm meant to be?"
Who knows?
Run. Come on, then.
It's always daunting joining a new club.
I signed under Lee Johnson.
Then obviously, Lee Johnson got sacked, like, two days after.
And I was thinking, like, "What have I got myself in for here?"
Quick one-two.
And I was just thinking it was just gonna be another, like...
Like the loans I'd been on previously. Like, a nothing loan, achieve nothing.
I was doubting it, to be honest. I was doubting the decision.
Like, I wouldn't say morale was shit, but, like,
things that you'd associate with this club in the past
were starting to, like...
Were starting to, like, come back up again.
And obviously, watching the documentary
and seeing, like, what went on behind the scenes,
And I'd been told that it's gonna be nothing like that,
and then coming into it, and it's sort of, like, it's feeling like that.
So I was just like,
Like, "Nah, I can't... can't with this."
The key thing that changed was we realized
we're not gonna finish in the top two anymore.
Our metrics that we tracked
showed that the team wasn't performing well enough.
So we changed the strategy from "how can we finish in the top two?"
to "we need to finish in the top six
and peak at the end of May to win difficult playoff games."
Because the playoffs are the last chance to get promoted.
I felt that I have to try and find a manager
who has experience at playoffs before
and has also won them.
- Is that him? - Yeah, that's him.
Yeah.
Big news in the last half an hour from League One.
Sunderland have appointed Alex Neil as their new head coach.
It comes just days after Roy Keane had walked away from talks,
having failed to agree personal terms.
Sunderland reached an agreement with Neil last night.
The 40-year-old agreeing a rolling 12-month contract at the Stadium of Light.
Neil has been out of management since he left his role as Preston boss
in March last year.
And one more time. Nice and sharp...
When you're out of work as a manager,
you go from arguably being the most important person in the club
to then sitting in the house on your own.
You're looking at results everywhere.
You're looking at what might become available,
what might be a next opportunity for yourself.
To be honest, I found out about the Sunderland job like everybody else,
through Sky Sports.
I'd been out of work for about 11 months at that point,
and I knew I needed to get back in
because the longer you're out, the more you're forgotten.
So I just spoke to my agent.
I just said to him, "Listen, can we find out if there's any interest there?"
League One wasn't really the level I wanted to go to.
You know, I made that quite clear at the time. Uh...
But I just felt the scope for this club
and what I think it can become,
I just thought was too much an opportunity to turn down
if there was an interest there.
Come on.
I think when a manager change happens, there's natural disruption there.
Lee, being the previous manager, had built good relationships with some players.
Some of the key players were disappointed that Lee had left at that point.
Two.
You need to try and take rid of all the negativity as quickly as possible.
I have a bit of a positive outlook on where the team actually was.
We weren't languishing at the bottom half of the table.
That was key for me to make sure that I got that across
and change that type of mentality,
and change how we viewed ourselves and what we're capable of doing.
Alex Neil, he is officially in charge of Sunderland today.
They're looking over their shoulders at those challenging them for a playoff spot.
Alex Neil needs to turn things round and do so quickly.
Up steps Luke McCormick,
and he puts Wimbledon in front,
right in front of the Sunderland fans.
Free kick with his right. Curls--
Goal!
Well, it's all over. The full-time whistle blown.
I thought we were naive in our play at times. We know we need to do better.
But listen, it's a platform in terms of, we didn't lose the game, we got a point.
Diabolical, again.
One time, you would've put your mortgage on we're gonna get promotion.
But now, this is as far as we're going to get,
and another season in this league.
I mean, the run doesn't get any easier.
We've got MK Dons coming up next week.
But this team's gotta get some momentum.
- Head into the playoffs on the upward. - Absolutely.
It's why this afternoon's game is such an important one, as you said.
Alex Neil, his first game at Stadium of Light.
Came out to a very muted reception.
And it's put through for Eisa. Eisa on the break here now.
Eisa at the edge of the penalty area. Rolls it in.
There you go.
It's one-nil.
Wickham comes in and he scores.
- Bottom right corner. - [commentator 2] Unbelievable.
Horrendous.
It's a massive victory for MK Dons.
A painful defeat for Alex Neil.
Sunderland drop out of the top six tonight.
It's a big dent for Sunderland in their promotion push.
They don't know how to win. You know, the confidence is shot.
The way we are sinking, you're not even gonna get into the playoffs.
Is this one gonna be fired goalwards? It is!
- - Burton take the lead.
Boo.
To that reaction, Alex Neil looks down towards the ground.
We are totally embarrassing.
There's gonna be big questions asked.
Not just of the ownership,
but the people making them decisions on the football side.
On the pitch, what is your immediate reaction to tonight's game?
Uh-- Erm...
I don't wanna repeat myself. It's hard. There's certainly frustration.
It's a reality check about the season.
What we've got to do now is finish in the top six,
take our chances in the playoffs.
Well, the story here is that they've failed to take advantage
of a number of good chances.
You know, we keep saying it can't get any worse.
We should be talking about how many goals are we going to win by,
not, "Oh, if we've got a draw, it's a good result!"
People want answers again about who is making the decisions.
Well, who is?
That's the question.
Everybody's got an opinion.
As a leader, you gotta hold your nerve.
With Kyril, you've got someone who's resolute
and believes in what he's doing and in the approach we've taken.
The most difficult thing I think to do is when you make a decision
and choose to do something differently, you gotta stand by it.
Lean into your chest, rebound as high as you can, yeah?
Okay, yeah.
Last one.
Go on. Fast. Fast. Fast.
You'll never see Luke down, ever.
Like ever.
It's, like, impossible how, like, positive he is about life in general.
Control that downward phase.
The last game, we were playing Charlton at Charlton,
and I wanted to start incorporating Luke into the squad, but he wasn't fit.
so I said to him, "Look, listen, I'd love to take you down to Charlton with us."
"Just want you to be in amongst the players
because you're gonna be important for the run-in in the games,
and you're gonna get yourself in the team."
And his reaction was, "I'd love it,
and I'm gonna be the best 19th man you've ever seen."
Go on, quickly, quickly, quickly, Contact's good...
That's infectious.
And it's so good for the group and so good for the team
because he's such a team player.
Off the back of that, he trains really, really hard
to get an opportunity and be part of the team.
We started real slow, built up confidence.
That, he just puts in there to laugh at me.
- Does that mean I'm back? - That means you're back.
- How are we? - Well deserved. Well deserved.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
How are we? Kev. Bosh.
I'm back.
You know, of the remaining games, what we've got left it's our cup finals.
Starting tonight.
It's a game which... A draw's no good for us, you know.
You know, we've got to look on it on the...
if we want to get into that playoffs, you've got to win tonight.
Niall's been... been to Wembley a few times.
He's, uh, seen quite a lot of defeats during that time, unfortunately.
Obviously, the top two is gonna be
a bit much for us to get now, with other teams playing so well.
But hopefully, we'll get in the playoff spots.
This year, we'll be able to take him down and see his first win
in Wembley as a Sunderland supporter.
- Scoreline? - Uh, two-one.
- Two-one? - One-nil.
One nil. Five-nil.
Number nine
will be Jack Clarke.
Number eight, Elliot Embleton.
...as the referee leads out the two teams
for a game that Sunderland really do have to win.
They've got ten games left this season, and they're looking over their shoulders.
They've slipped out of the playoffs again.
And they can go back up into the top six tonight.
Come on!
But they need to get in that top six,
and they need to consolidate that top six.
Come on, that's better!
Come on! Come on!
- Come on! - Go on, son!
Come on!
Go on, get it up the pitch!
Wright. Played back, passed well this time.
This time and-- Harrison scores.
Ha'way!
Jesus Christ Almighty, man.
Fucking hell, man!
Well, it was a mistake.
Bailey Wright puts his head in his hands.
Harrison pounced,
and in the 28th minute, Fleetwood Town take the lead.
Fight now. Fight!
...won just one in eight league matches, Sunderland.
Ha'way, lads.
Go on, Jack.
Clarke now, dribbling into the penalty area.
Low ball, punched away.
They've got it! Sunderland.
- Has the ball gone in? - Put in, I think by Elliot Embleton.
- Embleton. Great stuff. - Wow.
Embleton gets the equalizer.
Exactly the response he was looking for.
♪ Sunderland FC! ♪
Now they've got to build on this.
They've got steamed up.
Here he comes.
Get him on. I love him.
- Go on. Go on, son. - Go on, son.
- Boo! - What you doing, man? Fucking hell!
Oh, you...
- Hey, he fucking let it go! - Two.
- Two! - Two of them!
Two down--
What's this arsehole doing?
Come on!
Fuck off.
- Now, go. Go! - Come on!
And O'Nien now heads it down in the middle.
Gets it to Clarke, then gets it back now from Defoe.
And now with O'Nien through to Defoe.
Defoe's shot blocked.
Luke O'Nien, shot it into the bottom corner!
And Luke O'Nien is back with a goal!
And he's back to give Sunderland a 2-1 lead.
When that ball hit the back of the net,
the emotion was just at an all-time high.
My teammates that have just been there for me.
It was just magic.
It's a much needed win for Sunderland,
but they're still in a dog fight to make the top six.
There are nine crucial games until the end of the season,
and the team finally has some momentum.
♪ By far the greatest team The world has ever seen ♪
A bit of football now. Sunderland's chairman, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus,
has revealed that he doesn't hold the majority of the club's shares.
In fact, collectively, the previous owners have more.
Kyril Louis-Dreyfus only holds 41%
and is not the controlling influence within the boardroom.
Fans feel hoodwinked.
What was believed to be a takeover
has turned out to be a makeover.
It means nothing's changed.
It means we've been lied to, it means we've been misled.
It's just shocking.
What's-- What's going on? It's just a big mystery.