​IPSWICH, ENGLAND – AUGUST 22: Leke O’Nien of Sunderland AFC during the Premier League 2026/27 match between Ipswich Town and Sunderland at Portman Road on August 22, 2026 in Ipswich, England. (Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images) | Getty Images I’m annoyed.Not solely at Saturday’s loss to Ipswich and the somewhat slapdash manner of the defeat (although that certainly raised my blood pressure and left me with a sense of “For God’s sake, what a missed opportunity that was”) but instead, it was a combination of mistakes made at the heart of the Sunderland defence and the zeroing in on one particular player in the aftermath that got my back up — and to be brutally honest, it also made little sense.First and foremost, the Lads looked collectively rusty at Portman Road.There was no doubt about that, and the defensive solidity that provided the foundation on which much of last season’s endeavours was built seemed to be lacking.Call it a classic opening-day fumble or attribute it to various external factors such as key defenders not seeing much pre-season action or possibly a lack of new faces, but the red and white backline wasn’t good enough against Ipswich and the two goals we conceded were poor from a team perspective, yet with depressing inevitability, one man found himself in the firing line when all was said and done.The player in question here is Luke O’Nien and before we go any further, I’d like to lay out some bare facts.O’Nien, a summer arrival during the dog days of 2018, has spent nigh on a decade at Sunderland.He’s played for eight different head coaches (seven permanent and one interim), earning two promotions, one seventh-place finish in the Premier League and never falling out of favour during that time. Respect that, please.I’m not here to blindly peddle pro-O’Nien propaganda and to wilfully gloss over the weaknesses in his game, but when I see such a wholehearted, dedicated and selfless footballer consistently hammered every time he misplaces a pass or makes a mistake (disproportionately to many of his teammates, I might add), I find it more than a little disgraceful.Frankly, the whole “O’Nien is a liability” argument needs to be filed under Easily Debunked Sunderland Myths Of Our Time. It can be disproven with very little effort and has next to no basis in reality, and neither his fondness for motivational speeches and podcast appearances nor his upbeat, immensely driven personality should factor into that either.Furthermore, the argument collapses like papier mache in a furnace when you put it under greater scrutiny. We’ve had countless ‘liabilities’ at this football club over the years; players that were either burdened with horrific attitudes or a lack of ability, and he’s not one of them.Would Alex Neil, Tony Mowbray and Régis Le Bris — the three most successful Sunderland bosses of the past decade and hard taskmasters in their own right — have placed so much faith in O’Nien if he