How Sunderland's last meeting with Swansea highlights how far the club has come since

It feels like an awful lot has changed for both Sunderland and Swansea since their last meeting, and that's a VERY good thing for the Black Cats.

As the lads head down to deepest Wales in Swansea this weekend, it’s very interesting to note the varying fortunes of both clubs since the last meeting between the two sides back in May 2017.

The lads had just been relegated into the championship following an utterly depressing season in which everything that could go wrong ultimately did. Fan apathy was at an all-time low (worse to follow sadly!), And, after many seasons of circling the drain to tone a phrase, we were preparing to face life back in the second tier for the first time since 2007.

Swansea were fighting their own survival battle when they arrived on Wearside in the dying embers of the 2016-17 season. 38,000 hardened fans lined the Stadium of Light that day to watch yet another limp display from the team as Swansea picked the lads off at consummate ease winning 2-0 with goals from Fernando Llorente and Kyle Naughton.

Sunderland were booed off and for many members of that team they would be never be seen again in a red and white shirt - thankfully. Sunderland started that day with Jason Denayer in midfield, who miraculously went on to play champions league football after his loan spell with us.

Also in midfield that day was the disgraced and a name sure to send shivers down the spine of many Sunderland fans- Didier Ndong.

Ndong would be sacked by the club at the beginning of 2018 for breaching of his contract and was last seen playing for Yeni Malatyaspor (of the Turkish top flight apparently!) in the 2021-22 season. Again he had his loan spell cut short after just 20 appearances.

His Wikipedia page states he’s not at any club this year. and to think back in 2016 we spent a club record fee of 13.6 million for him - a truly depressing sign of the times for the club back then. It only gets worse when you consider David Moyes rejected the pleas of fan favourite Yann M'Vila to return that summer to pursue Ndong instead.

The state of the two clubs has seen varying paths since that day back in 2017. Indeed, Swansea did indeed survive relegation in the 2016-17, however this was only a mere stay of execution for them. The following season they fell through the trapdoor also as many seasons of relegation scraps ultimately caught up with them in the same way it had belied us 12 months prior.

Since they fell back into the second tier they’ve had mixed fortunes. They finished 10^th in the first season down in 2019, followed by two successive failures in play offs, a semi-final defeat in 2019 and a final defeat in 2021, both to now premier league side Brentford.

However, last season was disappointing for the Swans as they finished in a lowly 15^th place following the loss of Steve Cooper to Nottingham Forest in the early part of the season, Russell Martin stepped in and is overseeing much a transition at the south Wales club.

When the lads visit the liberty this weekend, the feeling around the club couldn’t be any different in comparison to that dark day in 2017. The club was a lost cause back then, lurching from one crisis to another.

We maybe strikerless at the present moment, but that pales into insignificance now compared to our last meeting against Swansea -and what we have as club moving forward.

The level may ultimately be lower, but the future seems incomparably brighter.

Saturday 13 May 2017 – Sunderland 0-2 Swansea

Sunderland: Pickford, Jones, Kone, O’Shea, Manquillo, Larsson, Denayer ( Gibson 20), Ndong, Borini, Defoe, Anichebe (Khazri 37)

Swansea: Fabianksi, Naughton, Fernandez, Mawson, Olsson, Ki ( Fer 67), Britton ( Cork 77), Sigurdsson, Carroll, Ayew, Llorente

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