Sunderland have been the surprise package of the 2025-26 Premier League season, but AFCON-enforced absences will test them over the next month.
To some, Sunderland were effectively cannon fodder following their promotion from the Championship.
For starters, each of the six promoted teams over the previous two Premier League seasons had gone straight back down after most went up with relative ease, so that was hardly a good omen. Similarly, Sunderland – promoted via the play-offs – went up with just 76 points; only four teams since 2004-05 have reached the Premier League with fewer, the most recent being Crystal Palace (72) in 2012-13.
We should also bear in mind that Sunderland overhauled their squad to a significant degree, and successfully gelling so many new players together in a short period of time is no mean feat.
But Régis Le Bris’ side have confounded all expectations, with Sunday’s 1-0 Tyne-Wear derby win over Newcastle leaving them seventh in the table on 26 points after 16 matches. Not only is that respectively 10 and 16 points more than fellow promoted sides Leeds and Burnley, but it’s already a greater total than Leicester City (25), Ipswich Town (22) and Southampton (12) managed in the entirety of 2024-25.
Concerns had developed in some quarters about a supposedly ever-widening gap between the Premier League and the Championship, but Sunderland have given others hope, not just because they’ve been competitive, but by threatening to challenge for Europe.
So, just how unusual has their adaptation to the top flight been?
Well, in the history of the Premier League, only six promoted teams have ever taken more than 26 points from their first 16 matches in a season. Five of them were before the turn of the century, with the most recent being Ipswich Town in 2000-01 – they had 27 points at this stage and went on to finish fifth.
The record actually belongs to Sunderland, as they had 31 points at this stage in 1999-00 before coming seventh, so they have something to aspire to.
Le Bris’ side could be seen as the antithesis of the teams who’d failed so miserably to stay up over the two prior seasons. Expansive football was key to some of those clubs earning promotion, but none of them were able to successfully prioritise being difficult to beat once they were up.
Sunderland, on the other hand, weren’t a typically dominant team in their promotion campaign. As already pointed out, their points tally was pretty low, and then in terms of the football they played, dominating the ball wasn’t the aim. Their 48.7% possession was only the 13th highest in the division, and it’s come down to 42.4% this term – the fourth lowest in the Premier League.
It reflects a mentality that’s seen them focus on being stubborn and difficult to play against, which Le Bris outlined in early October when saying: “We started with a specific identity, to defend well and suffer together because this league is difficult. If these foundations are strong, we can then start to express ourselves.”
There’s considerable evidence of these attitudes in Sunderland’s outputs for the season.
Firstly, no team have spent a greater proportion of their match time this term in a low block than Sunderland (35%), which gives an idea of their priorities.
Obviously, just being in a low block often doesn’t guarantee you’ll be hard to break down – just look at Wolves. But clearly, Sunderland’s defensive organisation has been sound, and the players they have there do their jobs ably.
Sure, their 234 non-penalty shots faced is the third most, but Sunderland do a decent job of restricting their opposition’s flow of high-value opportunities.
So, yes, 234 non-pen shots is high, but the average xG value of those attempts is just 0.09 – only Arsenal, widely regarded as one of the best defensive sides we’ve seen in the Premier League for years, are restricting their opponents to lower-quality chances than that (0.08) on average.
Linked to that, only 7.3% of Sunderland’s shots faced have been converted, which is the smallest proportion of all Premier League teams this season, and again supports the idea they are generally effective at preventing high-value chances.
When dropping into their low block, they frequently take up shapes with a flat-back five in variations of a 5-4-1 formation, or in something that resembles more of a classic 4-4-2. They’re compact and effective at quickly recovering their defensive shape, and that contributes to them being a nuisance to penetrate regularly.
Unsurprisingly, then, their proportion of shots faced in the box is the third lowest of all Premier League teams this season (64.5%), and it’s a similar story in terms of goals conceded in the area (64.7% – second lowest).
Again, such figures being comparatively low doesn’t necessarily mean a team is a solid unit defensively, but these metrics used in conjunction with others clearly reflect well on Sunderland.
They also have a good record defending set-pieces, with their three goals conceded in such situations (excluding penalties) only bettered by Tottenham and Brentford (2), while their 3.9 xG against from dead-ball scenarios is the fourth lowest.
All of this is helped by having a reliable goalkeeper, and it’s fair to say Robin Roefs is probably in contention for signing of the season at the moment. The 22-year-old was by no means a household name when Sunderland signed him in a deal apparently worth an initial £9 million, but he’s made a strong impact.
According to Opta’s expected goals on target conceded (xGOT) model, Roefs’ saves have seen him concede 3.5 goals fewer than the average goalkeeper would expect to let in based on the quality of chances faced – his 3.5 ‘goals prevented’ is the best of any goalkeeper this term.
He is aided in that respect by facing more shots than most, but we can standardise for the number of shots each goalkeeper in the league faced by looking at their ‘goals prevented rate’. Roefs’ goals prevented rate of 1.2 means he was expected to concede 1.2 goals for every goal he actually let in – that is tied with Emiliano Martínez and Dean Henderson for the best record in the division.
Although undoubtedly vital, it’s not just their work at the back that’s contributed to Sunderland sitting so high up the table at this point of the season. The way they play on the ball has had a massive impact on their results.
While Sunderland can be quite intricate in possession when building out from the back with Roefs, they soon look to shift the ball forward quickly. With quick wingers and a mixture of centre-forwards who can put themselves about physically while potentially offering a threat in behind, they don’t tend to dawdle when attempting to make inroads.
In fact, they are one of the league’s most direct teams. As much as 11.2% of their passes are long (32+ metres), which is the fifth-greatest proportion, and they are just inside the top half of the table for share of passes considered ‘progressive’ (successful open-play passes outside the defensive third that move the ball at least 25% closer to goal) at 7.0%. Similarly, 3.3% of their open-play passes are crosses, the seventh-highest share.
Not all of those figures are stark, of course, but they do reflect Sunderland’s urgent, direct mindset and a willingness to leverage the physical side of the game.
For example, their frequency of long balls influences the fact that only two teams have contested more aerial duels than Sunderland (596) this season. Obviously, they weren’t all in the attacking third, but 196 of them were – that’s the fourth most, or fifth most as a proportion of all aerial duels (32.9%).
But why do aspects such as these matter and how effective has this manner of playing been?
Well, quantifying and contextualising the effectiveness of direct and physical football can be quite difficult, but so many of Sunderland’s goals this season have followed a similar pattern.
If the goal hasn’t been a header, the chances are that a header or an aerial duel has played a key role. There are so many examples: both of their goals against Arsenal; Wilson Isidor’s goals against Brentford, Aston Villa and Chelsea; Talbi’s strike versus Liverpool, and more.
In total, 10 of their 17 non-penalty goals in the Premier League this season have come within 10 seconds of a headed pass or an aerial duel; that’s fewer than only Manchester United (14) and Arsenal (11).
Clearly, this is a huge strength, but that’s only further emphasised by the fact that 10/17 is 58.8%, which is comfortably the greatest proportion of all Premier League clubs this season. So, a cross or long ball might be met with a header that doesn’t trouble the goalkeeper, but Sunderland are efficient at keeping the danger alive and making the most of second balls.
As you might expect, then, set-piece proficiency has been a real weapon. Their seven set-piece goals (excluding penalties) is enough to put them joint seventh. That’s decent, but remember, they’ve only scored 17 in total when ignoring penalties, so this gives you a better idea of how important they’ve been to Le Bris.
That equates to 41.2% of their non-pen goals, a figure only Crystal Palace (47.1%), Leeds (44.4%) and Manchester United (42.9%) can better.
Having players who are effective in the air such as Dan Ballard and Omar Alderete helps, of course, but the presence of good technical players for deliveries – direct from set-pieces or with follow-ups shortly after – is obviously important as well. And in Enzo Le Fée, Chemsdine Talbi, Simon Adingra, Trai Hume and Granit Xhaka, among others, they certainly tick that box.
But the odd helpful dose of luck can’t be ignored. They’ve benefited from two own goals, both of which were almost out of nothing, while Talbi’s strike against Liverpool and Xhaka’s equaliser at home to Everton were aided by significant deflections.
Nevertheless, it’s fair to suggest most clubs benefit from some kind of fortune over a full campaign. It hasn’t got to a point where we need to question the universe or ponder whether Sunderland have a deal with the devil.
Well, Newcastle fans might feel otherwise given Sunderland’s apparent push for Europe, but it’s obviously still early days in that respect. For instance, Hull City in 2008-09 provide something of a cautionary tale as they took 26 points from their first 16 MDs following promotion, before going on to avoid relegation by just a single point.
After MD16 that season, Hull embarked on an 11-match winless run. Between MD17 and the end of the campaign, they earned a mere nine points.
On the face of it, such a drop-off would seem unlikely. But the next month or so will test the limits of Sunderland’s squad as the double threat of the packed festive period and the Africa Cup of Nations rears its head.
Sunderland are losing six players to AFCON, twice as many as any other Premier League team. While one of those players, Habib Diarra, has been out for three months and Arthur Masuaku has made just three league appearances, the other four – Bertrand Traoré, Noah Sadiki, Talbi and Reinildo Mandava – have accumulated 54 Premier League appearances this season.
Three of the six are also among the most experienced players in a squad that’s generally quite young, meaning they aren’t just going to be losing on-pitch quality.
Their fixture schedule over this period arguably lets them off the hook slightly. AFCON finishes on 18 January, meaning that during the tournament, Sunderland have Premier League home games against Leeds, Man City, Brentford and Crystal Palace, plus trips to Brighton, Tottenham and Brentford. Sure, among them are games that’ll be tricky, but they’ll also fancy themselves to pick up some wins along the way in spite of their long list of absentees.
And, crucially, their start to the season has earned them plenty of breathing room. No one expected them to be where they are now; no one expects them to remain there come the end of the season given the underlying data broadly suggests they’re overachieving.
Whatever happens from this point, though, Sunderland have already given fans something precious: belief. In a league that’s recently been inhospitable to newcomers, they’ve shown promotion doesn’t have to mean annihilation. The test now is whether that belief can survive the grind of a festive period made even tougher by AFCON absences. If it can, the Black Cats can look ahead to the final months of the season with no fear.
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Low Blocks, Long Balls and Belief: Sunderland’s Survival Blueprint Is Working But AFCON Absences Will Test Them Opta Analyst.
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