Being promoted to the Premier League is an achievement almost every football club dreams of, but only a certain few can make a reality.
In May 2025, Sunderland gained promotion to the top flight for the first time in nearly a decade, in the most exciting and dramatic way possible, and with around a third of our first season back now complete, things couldn’t have gone much better for us.
We’re in mid-table, within touching distance of the European places, twelve points clear of the relegation zone,
and we have a derby win — among nine victories this season. We’re also into the last sixteen of the FA Cup for the first time in over a decade and guaranteed to play a team from a lower division in the next round, which adds to the belief that we’re having a great season. Back in the summer, our hopes and expectations for the Premier League were to survive, and seventeenth place come May 2026 would constitute a successful season regardless of how we achieved it. By Christmas, these hopes changed, with our strong form moving us away from the aim of survival to dreaming of mid-table and possibly even more.
We’ve been on a tough run of late.
There’s no denying that, and four defeats in six is tricky, but I’ll caveat this and say two of those losses came against two of the best sides in the league, and one was away at a very good Brentford side whilst we had several key players out. As for West Ham, that was a good old-fashioned dreadful day at the office — it happens.
In the summer, there was a conscious effort by sections of the fanbase to prepare for dips in form. We were spoilt in the first few months of the season, with every loss being followed by a win, meaning this anticipated poor run hasn’t appeared until January/February.
We knew poor runs would come — they happen to every team in almost every league.
The Premier League can be ruthless but Sunderland have stood up to the task on more than a few occasions. Back-to-back defeats against Arsenal and then Liverpool is a small run most teams in the league would go through given these fixtures, so there’s no reason why our losses should be gone over with a fine-tooth comb.
After this weekend, there’ll be just ten games left of our first season back in the Premier League — a campaign which is flying by. Each week, it feels as though we’ve kept the points tally ticking over, so I’ve not realised how quickly the games were getting chalked off.
A good cup run — say, to the quarter finals — and a top half finish would constitute a fantastic campaign and a brilliant platform from which to build on for next season. If we do drop off to around thirteenth or fourteenth and still comfortably survive, this will also be a great achievement.
It’s possible to have both high expectations and to also not get frustrated when we slip into mid-table from the heights of the top eight we reached just a few weeks ago. Beat Fulham and we could be back in that position despite a tough run of results, which once again goes to show the value of getting points on the board in the way we have.
We’ve got eleven huge league games and at least one cup match left of what’s been a brilliant season. Relegation is a lingering worry that edges further onto the horizon with each passing week, so why shouldn’t we keep on looking up rather than down?
