If there was one thing on which you could generally bet the house when it came to Sunderland’s displays during 2025/2026, it was that the lads in red and white would give their absolute all — win, lose or draw — and that the majority of games at home and away would be marked by an almost fanatical desire to eke out results from seemingly unlikely positions.
Ball arcing into the box? Head it clear.
Opponent breaking into space? Get back and make that tackle.
Shot heading goalwards? Block it at any and
all costs.
It was a showcase of application and attitude working side by side, with a bunch of no-nonsense players led superbly by Granit Xhaka defying the odds and the predictions, and looking every inch a worthy addition to the league.
There were exceptions to this along the way, of course.
The trip to West Ham was thoroughly underwhelming and a home hammering at the hands of Nottingham Forest was an uncharacteristic aberration, but particularly at the Stadium of Light, Régis Le Bris’ men proved a fearsome proposition, preserving an unbeaten record on the banks of the Wear until Liverpool finally breached the fortress with a 0-1 win.
With the backing of a home crowd, players such as Omar Alderete, Dan Ballard, Nordi Mukiele, Brian Brobbey, Noah Sadiki and Xhaka became giants, with their sheer will to win carrying Sunderland to results that, in theory, we shouldn’t really have achieved. This in turn provided the bedrock on which European qualification was achieved — momentous, but by no means the end of the story.
This brings us to 2026/2027, and after Saturday’s limp, lifeless and thoroughly disjointed defeat at the hands of a Brighton side that played for over half an hour with ten men yet emerged with a 0-2 victory to show for their efforts, I think it’s valid to ask whether Sunderland have lost a touch of the diamond-cut hardness that made us such a tough proposition during our return to the top flight.
Although I wouldn’t go as far to suggest that there’s a subtle hint of complacency about things, I think it would be fair to say that things don’t feel quite right and that the questions are mounting for Le Bris.
Caveats? Yes. We’ve faced some tricky opponents yet even if we competed well against Arsenal and Manchester City, we came away with nothing to show for it.
The opening-day loss to Ipswich was atrocious and an away draw with Brentford was decent, yet the 1-0 success against Fulham felt far more like the kind of game that’ll go some way towards defining where we finish this time around. It’s not been a great start in terms of results, but perhaps the fixture computer was even more unkind to us than we initially thought.
Against the Seagulls, Brian Brobbey was a miss and Wilson Isidor was never going to provide the same kind of physical threat as the former Ajax striker, yet there was a lethargy; a lack of hustle about the Lads’ display on Saturday that I don’t think can solely be attributed to Le Bris, a naturally pragmatic head coach who now finds himself trying to oversee the kind of evolution that might go against his own instincts.
Too many Sunderland players are out of form at the moment — from the previously dominant Roefs to the visibly struggling Xhaka — and when you combine that with a system that seems to lack purpose and isn’t bringing the best out of the attackers at our disposal, a classic early-season grind is proving to be the net result.
It’s by no means something to fear but after the optimism of the summer, it does feel as though we’re not really kicking on in the way many hoped, and that would be a real disappointment.
As a newly-promoted side, our brief was to ensure survival yet thanks to some landmark results at home and some absolute all-timers away, we surpassed that with room to spare.
The mindset was generally spot on and although the elation of being back among the elite clearly gave us some extra zing, we were — and still are, in my view — a very good football team. These players haven’t been stripped of their talent. Instead, they’re discovering that Premier League life at Sunderland isn’t all wine, roses and elation, and they need to rediscover what it was that made them so hard to play against, and quickly.
The returns of the likes of Brobbey and Habib Diarra will help with that, but in the meantime, those currently in the frame need to up their game and find the solutions.
Le Bris won’t panic and I don’t think anyone else will either, but there needs to be a greater sense of purpose to Sunderland’s performance the next time we run out in the Premier League. If the instinct is correct and we have lost our way, we need to rediscover it as swiftly as possible.
