Martin O’Neill’s Black Cats bandwagon is motoring along nicely. JAMES HUNTER looks at how he has turned their season around

SAME bus; different driver. But what a difference Martin O’Neill has made to the direction in which Sunderland’s season is heading.

The Irishman has overseen a dramatic turnaround in the Black Cats’ fortunes in the space of just five short weeks since he took control on Wearside.

O’Neill inherited a side hovering one place -– and one point – above the relegation zone, bereft of confidence and sinking fast after back-to-back defeats against relegation candidates Wigan Athletic and Wolverhampton.

Barely a month later, Sunderland have won four out of six league games – including a memorable victory against Premier League pacesetters Manchester City – under their new leader, and sit in the top half of the table with an eight-point cushion between themselves and the bottom three. They have also avenged their home defeat against the Latics with their biggest away win for three years, and at the weekend cruised effortlessly past Championship side Peterborough into the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Much is made of the so-called ‘new manager effect’ in football, but surely not even the most optimistic Sunderland fan would have predicted the size and speed of the transformation on Wearside.

And what has made that transformation all the more remarkable is that it has been brought about with exactly the same squad of players that O’Neill’s predecessor Steve Bruce had at his disposal. There have been no new signings. No more money spent. But O’Neill’s bold decision to throw summer recruit James McClean into the Premier League fray in his first game in charge against Blackburn set the tone.

The young winger’s fearless approach and direct style lifted the crowd at the Stadium of Light and inspired a late comeback which saw Sunderland come from behind to kick-off the O’Neill era with a win. And they haven’t looked back since. While the Black Cats laboured to accumulate 11 points from their first 14 games, under O’Neill they have amassed another 13 in less than half as many outings.

To put those figures into perspective, and using last season’s league table as a guide, Sunderland were on course to finish with 28 points, which would have seen them finish bottom of the pile last term.

And at the rate they have picked up points under O’Neill, they would have pipped Manchester United to the Premier League title!

Of course, no one is seriously suggesting that Sunderland can maintain their current win ratio until the end of the season. But O’Neill has certainly lived up to his reputation as an impact manager – a man who gets results, and quickly. That was one of the reasons Sunderland owner Ellis Short appointed the 59-year-old, knowing he had to stop the rot on Wearside in a hurry.

At Norwich City in the mid-1990s, O’Neill took ten points from his first six games in charge; at Villa he returned 12 points from the same number of matches, and at Celtic he got off to a 100% start with the Scottish giants.

Only at Leicester City, where O’Neill lost two and drew four of his first six games, did he get off to a bad start. However, during his five-year spell in charge the Foxes finished in the top ten of the Premier League for four successive seasons, won the League Cup twice and also qualified for the Uefa Cup on both occasions.

But O’Neill’s start at Sunderland is the best he has made at any club south of the Border.

Like his managerial mentor Brian Clough, under whom he played at Nottingham Forest in the club’s glory years, O’Neill is a master motivator, capable of extracting every last ounce of talent from his players.

And if he can continue to get the best out of this Sunderland squad, who knows where the journey may take them?