Will Sunderland be the promoted team to buck the trend and stay up?

• Sunderland are embarking on their first Premier League campaign since the 2016-17 season.

• They beat Sheffield United in the Championship play-off final in May.

• The Black Cats have broken their transfer record and signed the likes of Simon Adingra and Granit Xhaka. 

• They’re favourites for relegation but are hoping to buck recent trends and re-establish themselves in the Premier League. 

Sunderland haven’t played Premier League football since the 2016-17 season, but they appear to be giving it their all as they approach their first season back in the top flight for eight years.

It’s not been the easiest decade for the Black Cats, with four consecutive seasons stuck in League One, but a fourth-place finish in the Championship last season led to victory in the play-offs. They beat Coventry City in extra time of the second leg with a 123rd-minute winner from Dan Ballard, before they came back from 1-0 down to beat Sheffield United at the final. 

Promoted teams have found it difficult to adjust to life in the Premier League of late, with all three promoted teams going down straight away for the last two consecutive seasons. Sunderland were an established Premier League team for a decade before they went down, and the aim is to return to that level again. 

They’re the favourites to go down with most bookmakers, ahead of fellow promoted teams Burnley and Leeds United and the likes of Wolverhampton Wanderers, Brentford and West Ham United. It’s not surprising, given they were play-off winners, but Nottingham Forest haven’t fared too badly since winning the play-offs themselves three years ago, so Sunderland could be another to buck the trend. 

Big-money signings

It’s no secret that Sunderland have spent some eye-catching sums of money on new players. Enzo Le Fée, a loanee from Roma, joined on a permanent deal at the start of the window alongside fellow midfielder Habib Diarra, a club record transfer at £30 million from Strasbourg. 

Winger Simon Adingra, who knows the Premier League after a couple of years at Brighton & Hove Albion, has also arrived, as has former Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka. Xhaka, who also captains the Swiss national team and is their most-capped player, might be 32 but has years of experience at the highest level. 

Noah Sadiki and Chemsdine Talbi are intriguing signings from the Belgian Pro League, arriving from Union SG and Club Brugge respectively, and Mozambican left-back Reinildo Mandava could be an astute addition from Atlético Madrid. 

Young goalkeeper Robin Roefs, an addition from NEC Nijmegen, could challenge Anthony Patterson in goal, too. 

Players making the leap to the Premier League

In terms of the players Sunderland already had going into the transfer window, midfielder Chris Rigg is surely the best place to start. He only turned 18 in June, but has already made over 70 first-team appearances in all competitions and despite plenty of interest from other teams, he could become one of the highest-paid teenagers in football with a new contract at the Stadium of Light. 

Centre-backs Ballard and long-serving club captain Luke O’Nien could keep their places, while winger Romaine Mundle should be an exciting option from the bench, as could forward Wilson Isidor. 

Like any club, Sunderland have to keep an eye on profit and sustainability rules, but have been able to spend in a large part because they’ve not spent much at all in recent years. Since their last Premier League relegation, they’d not spent more than £10m in a single year on signings and only made losses of £18m in the last two seasons.

They’ve sold Jobe Bellingham and Tom Watson for about £27 and £11m respectively, too, the latter representing pure profit as a homegrown player. 

Le Bris will be keen to impress

Régis Le Bris is fairly new as a manager at the top level, the 49-year-old beginning his career at Lorient as head of youth development in 2012. He coached the under-17 squad and then became reserve team manager in 2015, working with the likes of Mattéo Guendouzi, IllanMeslier and Alexis Claude-Maurice as well as Le Fée, with whom he’s now reunited at Sunderland. 

He became Lorient’s head coach in 2022, leading them to a tenth-placed finish in his first season before they suffered relegation in his second. He then left by mutual consent, taking over from caretaker manager Mike Dodds at Sunderland the same day. 

It’s fair to say that the 49-year-old has impressed in the north-east so far, and he has top-flight experience in France, but it will be interesting to see how he fares in the Premier League for the first time. He’s built a reputation for being intelligent and analytical, but also personable and friendly, and will no doubt be relishing the challenge of keeping Sunderland in the top division.

The Black Cats begin their season by hosting West Ham, before a trip to Burnley and then Brentford at home. These are all winnable, and six or seven points from nine would keep the feel-good factor after play-off success and provide some more momentum to take into games away at Crystal Palace and at home to Aston Villa, potentially a little more challenging. 

And home form could be crucial. The Premier League has missed the Stadium of Light, one of the biggest stadiums in England with a capacity of 49,000, and the backing of so many home supporters is likely to play a big part in the team’s survival hopes. 

Of course, things could go totally pear-shaped, with new signings not clicking and Le Bris out of a job by Christmas, but all a promoted club can do is put things in place for survival as best they can. And that’s exactly what Sunderland have done.

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