Local heroes, sublime
WHO would you include in your Sunderland best XI?
That’s the question we asked a series of former Sunderland players, challenging them to pick their best XI from the team-mates they played alongside during their careers on Wearside.
And this week it’s the turn of longserving midfielder Lee Cattermole who joined from Wigan Athletic in 2009 and spent a decade on Wearside before leaving the club last summer and subsequently joining Dutch top flight side VVV Venlo.
Cattermole made more than 250 appearances in all competitions for the Black Cats, wore the captain’s armband, and played three times for the club at Wembley, featuring in the 2014 EFL Cup final, and in the EFL Trophy final and the League One play-off final last season.
His played alongside around 130 different players in the Premier League, Championship, and League One, during his time at the Stadium of Light, giving him plenty of names to choose from.
Here he selects the best XI from his time on Wearside – and explains why.
Jordan Pickford
Jordan’s a great lad and he came through with such huge potential, and when you see what he has done already, earning a big move to Everton and establishing himself as England’s number one, he’s done brilliantly.
It’s not easy to be England number one and it is something that other keepers have struggled with, but he deals with everything that is thrown at him and he’s very game in the way he plays.
He was a big favourite with the fans at Sunderland and if he had spent longer there I think his confidence would have just grown and grown.
People say you shouldn’t really notice your goalkeeper but he is the type of keeper you want to watch.
He’s a massive character and he’s someone I’d love to have in my team.
Jordan is one of those that just loved keeping the ball out of his net and even when one went in during training you could see it hurt him!
John O’shea
I’ve gone with a back three, and bang in the middle I’d have Sheasy.
He’s such a calm head, he sets a great example for the other players, and he taught me a lot throughout my career.
We both wore the captain’s armband at different time and we were like chalk and cheese in terms of how we approached the captaincy, but I learnt such a lot from John in how he goes about his business as a player.
He came from Manchester
Phil Bardsley
To the right of Sheasy I’ve got Phil Bardsley – although I’m not too sure how playing as a right-sided centreback would go down with Bardo!
But, bear with me, I think it would good for the balance of the team and it would give us a couple of options to change shape because teams have to be adaptable these days.
That’s the way the game is now and given the characters I’ve chosen in my side, I think they’d be happy changing positions.
Bardo was a terrific character, exactly the kind of player you want around your squad and in your team.
He’s played under managers that really appreciate that, they see that people like Phil set the tone in training.
Every manager that Bardo played under at Sunderland, barring one maybe, saw that quality in him and he was a great servant to the club.
And Bardo is still playing in the Premier League now with Burnley at the age of 34.
I wish sometimes the club had gone about giving players a better send-off, because Bardo was at the club for six years and then suddenly