Luke O'Nien and eight other Sunderland players who successfully changed positions

Is changing your position always a bad thing? Well, these Sunderland players prove otherwise.

Michael Graham | Nov 21, 2023

Luke O'Nien and eight other Sunderland players who successfully changed positions /

‘Natural’ positions, ‘square pegs in round holes’ and all that. It’s fair to say that players changing positions is something that has generally divided Sunderland fans over the years.

Sunderland fans are far from unique in that sense, of course. Right now, the debate rages about Luke O’Nien, whether he is a ‘proper defender’ or not and the pros and cons of maybe looking to replace him in the team.

Of course, those against players switching positions have plenty of examples to cite to support their argument that it’s not a good idea.

However, there are also examples of Sunderland players switching positions with great success to consider as well. Let’s have a look at them.

Kevin Ball

Think Kevin Ball and you almost certainly think of thunderous midfield tackles. In fact, Ball wasn’t just a midfield enforcer, he was the midfield enforcer that other midfield enforcers feared.

He was the player that Vinnie Jones named as the hardest he ever faced and legend has it that Ball once offered to fight with Jones and the whole Crazy Gang due to their attempts to intimidate a very young Michael Bridges in the tunnel before the game.

Bally was not signed to play in central midfield, though. In fact, he was the centre-back replacement for John MacPhail when he headed to Hartlepool after the 1990 play-off final.

In fact, he even played centre-back for Sunderland in the 1992 FA Cup final. It wasn’t until the end of the 1993/94 season when then-manager Terry Butcher needed to figure out how to get all of Gary Bennett, Andy Melville and Kevin Ball into his team, and his solution was to push Ball into midfield to add some steal to Derek Ferguson’s guile.

Bally never looked back, and he became far more than just the enforcer he is most commonly remembered for – as the video below shows.

Michael Gray

Michael Gray maybe doesn’t strictly belong on this list as technically he didn’t really changed position. He just kind of changed back.

Gray was a left-back as a youth player and played in that position following his initial breakthrough into the Sunderland team.

When Peter Reid arrived, he gave Gray a new lease of life as a winger. He played a key part in the 1995/96 promotion winning team and impressed in the Premier League too.

The following season, though, the emergence of Allan Johnston and the continuing injury problems of Martin Scott saw Gray revert to left-back again, and he ended up representing England in the position.

Michael Gray England — Michael Gray playing left-back for England / IMAGO

Sebastian Larsson

When you analyse the best value signings in Sunderland history, Sebastian Larsson will be very tough to beat.

Larsson arrived on a free transfer from Birmingham in a midfield shake-up funded, and necessitated by, the sale of Jordan Henderson to Liverpool.

The Swede actually started out playing on the left for Sunderland, mainly due to Steve Bruce’s off obsession with Ahmed Elmohamady – an affliction he never really managed to shake during his managerial career.

Still, right or left, Larsson was signed to play as a winger. However, football was changing. The 4-4-2 system was in its death-throws and wingers had to be wide strikers with quick feet and even quicker legs. Larsson had neither.

He was reconditioned as a central midfield player, and he became a good one too. Never flash, but very solid, dependable, and always a threat from set-pieces. All in all, a very successful transition.

Luke O’Nien

Well, we had to get to him at some point, right? There isn’t a Sunderland fan on the planet who doesn’t like Luke O’Nien, respect him, and are immensely grateful for what he has done on Wearside.

However, whether or not he has made a successful positional transition from midfielder who arrived to the centre-back he is now is certainly up for debate.

At the end of the day, though, a midfielder who was signed by a League One club on the back of a League Two season is now playing regular Championship football as a centre-back.

For me, that’s nothing but a success.

Lynden Gooch

Ah Lynden Gooch. The wonderfully baffling, frustrating, yet undeniably resilient Lynden Gooch who commands the respect of every Sunderland fan who watched him.

Gooch is talented and tenacious, but he definitely didn’t feel like a natural defender. He just never looked like he would have the instincts for it. No one, including himself, really knew his best position in an attack either.

He did have plenty of other stuff going for him, though. He has an incredibly work ethic, a desire to compete and he is probably better coming onto the play rather than receiving the ball in tight areas in the final third.

Alex Neil seemed to recognise this and he retooled it all to create a very decent full-back. One so good, in fact, that he was happy to pay £1million for him last summer.

Darren Williams

Darren Williams was a bargain £50,000 signing from York City and he is probably best remembered for being an incredibly handy utility player.

He was, though, signed as a midfielder. He played in midfield for York when they beat Manchester United 3-0 at Old Trafford. Current Sunderland under-21s boss Graeme Murty was in that team too, incidentally.

Peter Reid loved him, and when Richard Ord picked up a serious injury in the 1997/98 season, Reid decided to use Williams as a centre-back.

The argument was similar to that of Luke O’Nien today, actually. Williams was smaller than you’d like for a centre-back and vulnerable to being overpowered, but he was able to deliver quality possession into midfield and the value of that to such a good team was recognised.

Sunderland grew too fast for Williams to maintain his position in defence, and a poor performance in the 1998 play-off final didn’t help him. He then turned more into the utility defender we all remember now, but his England B and under-21s caps came during his time at centre-back.

Lee Howey

By the end of 1993, Steve Howey was an established part of a Premier League defence at Newcastle and was a just months away from an England debut. Lee Howey, meanwhile, Steve’s older brother, was attempting to forge a career at their boyhood club Sunderland after signing from Bishop Auckland.

Steve Howey had famously switched from striker to centre-back in his early days at Newcastle, and Lee was about to do the same.

He was signed as a striker and his early appearances for the club came up front. He was a handful too and scored some good goals, it must be said.

Eventually, though, like Steve, Lee Howey would be converted into a centre-back and a very decent one he was, as he proved in the role he played in helping Sunderland win the First Division (Championship) title in 1996.

Kieran Richardson

Considering Sunderland currently have Dennis Cirkin, Aji Alese and Niall Huggins, it has become almost a distant memory how difficult the club used to find it to have a competent left-back.

The club sold George McCartney, tried loads of varying names like Clive Clarke and Lewin Nyatanga to replace him, then just decided to re-sign McCartney instead. He couldn’t fill his own boots either, so Kieran Richardson was tried instead.

Richardson did not arrive at Sunderland as a full-back though. He was very much an attacking player. Richardson played left-wing for Man Utd and West Brom and he fancied himself more as a number 10 type. In fairness, he was very occasionally quite devastating in that position for Sunderland.

He definitely found a new position at left-back, though, and it was one that he even maintained after leaving the club as well.

Dave Watson

For many, Dave Watson is the best centre back that Sunderland have ever had. Charlie Hurley might disagree, but Watson certainly presents a strong case.

He was not signed as a centre-back though. He was signed by Alan Brown in 1970 as a striker, a position that he had played for both Notts County and Rotherham before arriving at Roker Park.

In November 1972, Bob Stokoe became Sunderland manager and moved Watson to centre-back. The rest, as they say, is history.

Watson won a major trophy with Sunderland in that position and went on to play 65 times for England too. Remarkable.