Sunderland Fixture Release Reaction: Which games are you looking forward to most? (2024)

Ian Bendelow says...

I’m delighted, because it now gives us a focus. Existing as we have over the last few weeks on near radio silence about almost everything has driven many of us insane. Thank God for football.

It is a start that is quite tricky to weigh up. On one hand you could make a good argument for it being tough. Cardiff, followed by a home double header against Sheffield Wednesday and Burnley - who all will have their own reasons to be confident - will require points on the board for this famously intolerant fan base.

Having said that, I look at the teams in the league this season and think what’s to fear? Sunderland, with the right investment over the pre-season could be in a very strong position. Then again, there’s probably 15 other teams who feel that way.

November appears quite tricky and it’s a shame that we have no Boxing Day home match (let’s hope for a Newcastle Christmas stuffing then) but in general it’s quite a nice spread. Though as the campaign progresses we’ll no doubt learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of the sides we will face.

I’m predicting 110 points - and why not.

It’s that time of year when literally every fan in the land is wildly optimistic.

Phil West says...

Cautiously optimistic, but that’s my default response whenever the fixtures are released and we pass the first waypoint on the road to the new season.

With a new head coach in place, the fixtures published, and the launch of our new kit imminent, we’re very much ramping up our preparations, but there’s a lot of work to do in a variety of areas if we’re to enter 2024/2025 in competitive shape.

Kicking off the campaign with a clutch of long away trips could, I feel, be beneficial in terms of building camaraderie within the squad and for Régis Le Bris to find out even more about his players, such as how they handle different challenges and whether they’ve got the ability to tough things out and achieve results in different ways.

It’s easy to say that ‘It’s a tough start’ or ‘It looks like such and such a month might be tricky’, but we’ve got to play everyone twice, and it’s probably reasonable to assume that Sunderland’s squad will look significantly different by the time we make the trip to Cardiff.

With that in mind, let’s see how our summer transfer business pans out; after all, we achieved a hell of a result the day after last summer’s transfer window closed, and with some smart additions, we can certainly regain the ground that was lost last season.

In terms of standout fixtures, I’m looking forward to the clashes with Middlesbrough (certainly at home, as we owe them one after last season’s hammering), and there’s always a sense of excitement whenever we play Leeds United, so those should be games to look forward to.

I also want to see how we fare against Derby County, a side I’m extremely glad to see back in the Championship after some tough times at Pride Park, and they’ll doubtless be bang up for it when they face us.

I suppose that’s what you might call ‘Championship heritage’, even if the days of Billy Davies and his wind-ups are long gone!

Photo by Ross MacDonald/SNS Group via Getty Images

Andrew Smithson says...

I don’t think the fixture list seems too bad on paper in terms of picking up points — there doesn’t seem to be any obvious long tricky patches, and the run-in appears to be favorable.

As for scheduling and travel, I’m not keen on the sound of a midweek trip to Norwich City. In a perfect world, I’d have wanted the Lads to start at home just to try and give the Régis Le Bris era the best chance of getting off to a good start. That said, we were probably due an away opener, and the last time we did start at this level on the road, we ended up being promoted, so hopefully it proves to be a good omen.

Being away on Boxing Day wouldn’t normally be ideal either, but in Blackburn Rovers, I don’t think we could have asked for better opposition — easy enough to get to and with a large allocation likely, this is one that I’m already looking forward to.

My only hope, however, is that it doesn’t get changed around for TV coverage; with the number of games due to be screened this season, large sections of this list are still just provisional, and that makes planning things harder. I’m pleased that there are going to be longer notice periods for alterations, but with Sunderland always likely to attract decent audience figures, I dare say we will be subject to plenty of shifts, and that what the fixtures say today will be very different from what actually plays out.

Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images

Malc Dugdale says...

I can’t wait for the new season to start, and I hope our fans, looking over the fixtures list now, will take away some of the fuss and whining and allow us to focus on the games again rather than how many coaches and managers allegedly declined us before Le Bris was signed up.

I’m disappointed we are away for our first game, as it would be good to give the new gaffer and our hopefully extensive list of new signings a league welcome at home if we could, but we can do that against Sheffield Wednesday the week after, and to an extent in the pre-season games too.

Cardiff is often a place where we struggle to get results, so it will be a big test for the new coach on league day one. What an introduction to the Championship too—about twelve or thirteen hours on a bus! Maybe they will fly. Makes sense.

The Burnley game in August will be a big and early test too, but it will be a good barometer for the coach to use if he is serious about us mounting a playoff or promotion push this season. He may not have all the inbound transfers by then with the window closing a week or so later, but hopefully the main ones will be on board and starting to fire, especially the new striker we simply cannot fail to bring in.

If we can get to the Middlesbrough game in mid-September with 1.5 to 2 points per game, and most importantly show some return to the nice flowing football we all missed so much in the second half of the last campaign, the crowd will settle, and the season can play out well for us.

If I were Régis, that would be my aim—get through the first six to eight fixtures with good football, no injuries, and around 1.5 points per game. Learn about the team, how we can play, and how we best mesh with the tactics of the coach and the club.

It’s not worth worrying about what’s too far in the future. Let’s get out of the league starting blocks well and prevent more manager churn from becoming a factor, as I’ve had a gut full of that this last 12 months.