Well, that was a bit of a damp squib of a “match one”, wasn’t it?
It was always going to be a bit “meh” for me, to be honest – I erroneously made arrangements to have lunch with some old friends on Saturday (family pals, not footy mates), which I was really looking forward to and enjoyed a lot, but I knew would probably overrun. Before a ball was kicked, I’d settled for maybe seeing some of the second half, and hopefully seeing us do well.
As it transpired, I failed as a so-called “fan” to greater
depths than the lads did – I couldn’t get any visibility of the match until about ten minutes from the end, when a family member shared a rather dodgy internet link. By the time that got working, I watched Jack Clarke bend it into the bottom corner (as we have seen him do so many times), and that was that.
After only seeing the tail end and watching us lose to an “ex”, the whole weekend took a bit of a nosedive in terms of football feelings for me. I still haven’t watched the highlights even now (Tuesday morning as I draft this), such has been the underlying indifference around the fixture and my disappointment.
But when I woke up yesterday morning, I thought I’d take a look at what this may mean based on last season’s first matches… and while it’s a bit of a mixed bag, it’s far from the Armageddon some online bed-wetters have already made it out to be.
Quite a few teams lost their opening game of the 2025-26 Premier League season, and what transpired was mixed.
Burnley lost to Spurs, and kept up the habit most weeks. Wolves lost 4-0 at home to Man City and did the same. And we all know West Ham lost 3-0 away to our little wizards, and ended up unable to avoid the drop.
Everton lost 1-0 at home to Leeds, again a promoted side doing really well on matchday one, this time away from home. But for Everton and the other two, the flip side of how we feel right now is quite interesting.
Bournemouth were the wrong side of a six-goal thriller away to Liverpool too, losing 4-2. They did OK by the end of the season though, didn’t they? Sixth.
Most significant of all are Man Utd, who just lost to Hull on the first game of this 2026-27 season, and lost their opening game last season too. OK, it was 1-0 away to the eventual champions Arsenal, but it was a first-fixture loss.
So while losing in the manner we did, with a few of our great players not really doing as well as they can and a couple of avoidable errors in defence leaving us to travel home with nothing when a point probably felt reasonable, this is far from a major issue.
United went on to secure a third-place finish, an amazing outcome for the club and their eventually permanent north-eastern manager. Bournemouth got sixth and the Champions League. Everton finished mid-table, when at times they could barely buy a win at the shiny new stadium on Merseyside, and for spells were at risk of playing in the second tier, as we did with the SOL all those years ago.
It’s also worth noting that the bad start wasn’t just in the first game for United, Bournemouth or Everton. After four games, Utd and Bournemouth had four points, and Everton had three. One point per game or less.
So where do we sit, and what does this mean for us?
In my view, we have way more in common with Bournemouth and Everton, and even Man Utd, than we do with West Ham, Burnley and Wolves.
We have a coach who learns quickly and will be hell-bent on fixing the errors from the weekend that cost us so much. Let’s be honest, if not for the two defensive mistakes, we got at least a draw from that game.
We have invested both last season and this better than Burnley and Wolves did previously, with youth and promise blended around experience and impeccable professional standards.
We have players who recently returned from the World Cup and will still be getting back up to speed and integrating with club-mates, old and new.
And we have one of the best fan bases in this country, the vast majority of whom will turn up and sing their hearts out for the lads this weekend when Fulham come calling.
So my view, after not really seeing the game but doing a bit of thinking and reading, is we crack on for the next few games, and the few after that, and then see where we are. With some of the new signings now coming in and using this time to bed in, we could well still have a lot to smile about either side of the Europa League draw.
One swallow does not make a summer, and one loss does not need to trigger a meltdown. We are a different Sunderland now, and we need to get used to that after many years of that simply not being the case.
