Sunderland are building a rapid team for 2025/2026!

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For years, we bemoaned a lack of it.

For season after season, we called for those making the decisions on recruitment to inject some, but as Sunderland continue to reshape their attack ahead of 2025/2026, one thing I think we can safely say we won’t lack is that most precious of attributes: pace.

Simon Adingra, Chemsdine Talbi, Wilson Isidor, Eliezer Mayenda, Patrick Roberts and Ahmed Abdullahi is an undeniably exciting forward line — one that suggests we’re determined to be as ready as possible for the

challenges that lie ahead.

Align that to the vigour that the likes of Habib Diarra and Noah Sadiki ought to add — combined with the tireless work rate of Enzo Le Fée — and this team takes on a distinctly energetic look.

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News of Romaine Mundle’s latest injury setback and a deal for Sassuolo’s Armand Laurienté collapsing at the eleventh hour was unfortunate, but if we have alternative targets in mind and Mundle can recover fully, it’ll give us further options — and options and flexibility are what we need in abundance this coming season.

Towards the end of 2024/2025, there was a calculated shift in Sunderland’s style of play, that of opting to soak up pressure and hit opposing teams with pace and power on the counter attack.

Perhaps best illustrated during the playoff semi-final first leg against Coventry City, where a breakaway goal from Wilson Isidor gave us the lead before Eliezer Mayenda’s late interception helped us to a 1-2 win, it’s a style of play that’ll need to be fine-tuned and taken to a new level in the top flight.

In recent years, naivety has been the hallmark of too many sides attempting to make the step up from the Championship to the Premier League.

‘Identities’ and ‘philosophies’ are very much in vogue but if you haven’t got alternative strategies to hand, the brutal reality of football at the highest level soon takes its toll, with even the best laid plans being reduced to rubble in the shark tank of one of the most demanding and ruthless leagues in the world.

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Vincent Kompany may have fallen upwards into the Bayern Munich job following his departure from Turf Moor, but Burnley’s 2023/2024 Premier League campaign was a case study in how failure to adapt to a more challenging league can be costly.

Down on the south coast, the same was true of Southampton in 2024/2025, who were wedded to Russell Martin’s ‘We’ll play out from the back come hell or high water’ vision at the expense of ever actually looking like a semi-competent Premier League side, and were arguably doomed to relegation by the time he was sent packing.

Such mistakes hopefully won’t be repeated by Régis Le Bris.

It’s obvious that he has a very clear vision of how best to tackle the Premier League, and that ‘play more smartly and not more intricately’ will be Sunderland’s modus operandi.

Dominating the ball and weaving complex patterns? Forget it. Being disciplined, well-drilled, and capable of breaking out at pace and taking our opportunities when they come? Definitely. That’ll be our go-to approach this coming season and it feels well suited to the profile of the squad.

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It’s also important to remember that the market for strikers, in terms of the ratio of transfer fees to goalscoring returns, is as baffling as I can ever remember it.

It’s clear that what we want from our forwards are genuine all-round credentials, which is why, barring any unforeseen developments, I’m not expecting us to sign a ‘traditional’ striker — either in the shape of a nippy, elusive poacher or a big bruiser of a target man — during this window.

As you look at top flight’s selection of truly elite forwards, most of them bar Erling Haaland are far more then merely goalscorers. Instead, they’re increasingly wingers-come-strikers-come-supermen, and there’s plenty of value in Sunderland taking inspiration from that.

Like any good boxer, we’ll need to be light on our feet and capable of taking some powerful shots while landing some stingers of our own if we want to put up a good showing in 2025/2026.

With that in mind, adding players who can give the speed gun something to think about feels like a very wise approach, and it’s got the potential to help us make the kind of impact we’d all love to see.

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