OTD: ROMAINE MUNDLE BORN

On this day in 2003, current Sunderland winger Romaine Mundle was born in London.

Mundle began his career in the youth setup at Tottenham Hotspur, first signing a professional contract in 2021. He never made a senior appearance at Spurs though, his first team involvement was limited to the odd spot on the substitutes bench. In 2022, Romaine played his first match in a senior fixture; he started in an EFL Trophy game away to Wycombe Wanderers for Tottenham U21s. Despite a lack of senior minutes, the attacker was regularly involved at youth level. In total he played a combined 89 matches across the U18, U19 and U21 teams, racking up 12 goals and 16 assists.

Standard Liege was his next club, moving there in summer 2023 after the rejection of a new contract at Tottenham. This would give him the opportunity to play senior first team minutes in a top flight league, but minutes would be harder to come by than he perhaps would have liked. His first (and only season) for the Belgian club saw seven games played (zero of which were starts). In addition to this however, he did manage another four games for Liege’s reserve team playing in the second tier. In the first of these games, he started and scored twice in a 2-1 victory; these strikes would be the first senior goals of his career.

After less than a year in Belgium, Mundle was on the move again and this time he came to Wearside in February 2024. Presumably this was because, again, he had been suffering from a dearth of first team minutes. Game time wouldn’t exactly be a guarantee at Sunderland though. Naturally a left winger, he would face competition from Jack Clarke for game time and Clarke had been by far and away our best player of the season. His debut would come off the bench nine days after signing in a 3-1 win over Plymouth Argyle.

His first start occurred not long after this, he played alongside Clarke in Michael Beale’s final game in charge versus Birmingham City. Mundle started out on the right and Clarke in his normal left wing role. Clarke picked up a knock and was unavailable for a few fixtures after this and so Mundle had a run of a few games, involving starts and coming off the bench. He’d continue to be played on the left and right depending on the match. He found the back of the net for the first time in Sunderland colours away to Southampton, a great strike that got us back into the game having been 2-0 down beforehand. The north London born winger played 11 games in total during his debut season in the North East.

This season, initially, he remained behind Jack Clarke in the pecking order but Clarke left for Ipswich Town early on. Our fans worried how we would cope without him, as we had been basically reliant on him to pick up points in the season just gone. Mundle put any of those fears to bed immediately though, scoring the winner, and only goal of the game, against Burnley in our first game without Jack’s presence. He then netted in the next two games following this and, before he picked up an injury in November, he scored another and assisted twice (both assists happening in the same game versus Coventry City).

Mundle returned from the sidelines in February and his goal against Preston North End (that rescued us a point late on) was an absolute screamer. It curled into the top right corner of the net from an obtuse angle, and while he was outside of the box, deservedly being named Championship Goal of the Month. Unfortunately, he was injured once again away to West Brom in April and remains out of action. At the time of writing, Regis Le Bris is hopeful he will be back to feature in the playoffs although he isn't expected to be back for either of our two remaining regular season games.. This season has been a breakout year of his career and he’s definitely one of our best players now, having been sporadically involved for his first few months here.

On the international stage, Mundle has been overlooked at England youth level. He has options though, his father is from Jamaica and his mother is from St Kitts and Nevis.