“Our partnership in the centre is set in Northern Irish and Paraguayan stone — Ballard and Alderete are that good”.
It was a fairly emphatic declaration of frustration from Getafe president Angel Torres, who summed up the scale of his club’s loss and Sunderland’s gain in one simple sentence.
We’ve given away Omar Alderete — one of the best centre backs in La Liga — to a newly-promoted Premier League club for peanuts just so that I could have sixteen or seventeen players registered by Sunday.
Alas, that’s the way it sometimes goes.
The lure of the Premier League, the money we could offer by way of wages and were willing to pay up front, and so on, but as Sunderland continue to build a defensive foundation anchored by the no-nonsense Paraguayan and his equally combative partner Dan Ballard, it’s hard not to feel a sense of “How the hell did we pull this particular transfer off?” when considering the impact that Alderete has made since making the switch from La Liga during the summer.
Amid all of the justified excitement at the impact made by the likes of Granit Xhaka and Noah Sadiki, it may seem strange to suggest that Alderete has gone under the radar by comparison, but whilst they’ve added energy, nous and game-changing ability in midfield, Alderete has shored up the Sunderland backline, injecting some real edge and helping to provide us with a platform on which a promising first half of the season has been built.
During his last two games, Alderete — despite some wobbly moments early on against Newcastle — has continued to do what he’s done ever since he entered the fray against West Ham before mugging off one of the Hammers’ attackers with a neat turn and injection of pace to get out of danger when facing his own goal — and that’s to show all of his class, defensive nous and perhaps most importantly, his sheer commitment to the task at hand.
Make no mistake: this is as imposing a defence as I can ever remember Sunderland fielding (even in the temporary absence of Reinildo) and although there may be a debate as to who fills in at left back for the games ahead, our partnership in the centre is set in Northern Irish and Paraguayan stone — Alderete and Ballard are that good.
We’re all aware of Ballard’s strengths — his aerial dominance, his positional skill and his sheer wholeheartedness — yet Alderete brings all of this in spades and it’s augmented by his fiery character and an almost fanatical desire to keep the opposition at bay.
With the promising Robin Roefs backing them up, that much-vaunted “magic triangle” of two exceptional central defenders and an equally capable goalkeeper is in place, and the message to our rivals couldn’t be clearer: “Defending is something in which we take a lot of pride, and you’ll have to work very hard to get the better of us”.
It feels as though this is all part of the Régis Le Bris ideal, and it’s evident that he wants his side to be tough to breach, with a hard-nosed approach to defending and a level of organisation that can match the very best this league has to offer.
It’s fair to say that we’re certainly not as prolific in attack as we perhaps could be, but as we slowly edge closer to a points tally that’ll secure our Premier League status, perhaps the head coach will readdress the balance, freeing the Lads up to be a little more positive in attack whilst trusting those at the back to keep it tight.
Fundamentally, does anyone really care about the balance between defence and attack if it enables us to achieve our goals for the 2025/2026 season — primarily that of competing strongly at home and away and showing that we aren’t simply here to make up the numbers?
This is a process, after all. It’s not a perfect one and it’s not without the occasional frustration, but there are currently far more positives than negatives on display and the fact we’ve evolved into such a mean-spirited defensive unit is no mean feat, either.
Many sides in this league would doubtless love to be able to call on such a rock solid partnership at the heart of their defence, and I think there’s something deeply satisfying about a Sunderland side that’s this adept and streetwise when it comes to protecting their own goal. You rarely — if ever — see the Lads slacken off in that regard, and it’s undoubtedly being driven by the Alderete/Ballard axis.
Their respective journeys to the Sunderland first team could scarcely have been more different, but the combination is extremely potent and thus far, it’s worked beautifully.
We love tough-tackling and physically dominant defenders in these parts, and there’s no doubt that we’ve struck gold with our current go-to partnership — a genuine Premier League-quality duo.
Category: General Sports
