Four wins and four clean sheets in eight Premier League games is nothing short of remarkable. Saturday’s 2-0 win over Wolves came in a match that wasn’t a “must-win” but was certainly a “don’t lose”. For
most of the afternoon, losing never looked like an outcome — and this turned out to be the case.
The win was another example of how we continue to look at home in this division. Wolves have struggled this season but were kept at bay by a back four and a goalkeeper made up of a blend of players from the Championship and League One, as well as some new recruits.
Trai Hume, Omar Alderete, Nordi Mukiele, and Dan Ballard sitting in front of Robin Roefs has the potential to be the best defensive setup we’ve had in a long time. They were superb on Saturday — so much so that Roefs didn’t even have that much to do.
Against Wolves, Mukiele shifted to right back and Hume went over to left back, despite both playing in unfamiliar positions for this season. The duo linked up for the first goal of the afternoon and defensively, they weren’t half bad either.
Alderete and Ballard started together for the first time, and it honestly wasn’t surprising to see that they were class together.
This back four feels like the most realistic way of getting Mukiele, Ballard, and Alderete into the same side, and we also have Reinildo available for the trip to Chelsea — a player who made over one hundred appearances for Atlético Madrid – but there’s no guarantee he gets his place back.
Making sure we’re solid defensively is a key part of being successful this season, and it’s so far so good on that front. It helps to have a good midfield, an area in which we also recruited over the summer, but keeping clean sheets in half of our games so far is a huge testament to the work being done. In our last Premier League campaign, we kept six clean sheets all season, whereas we have four in eight games this time around.
It’s not hard to look better defensively than in previous Premier League campaigns, but there’s no doubt that the hierarchy took the need to strengthen our defence and midfield seriously in the summer.
We’ve signed three top quality defenders and a new goalkeeper for about £35 million. Add Hume and Ballard and you’ve got the makings of a rock solid backline — which we’re already seeing reflected in games and in the stats.
We’ve got the options to mix things up and when injuries and suspensions come calling (which they already have in some cases), it doesn’t feel feel like we’re going to be carved open. For a newly-promoted side, this is huge, and something that we should maintain as a solid base from which to build up from.
Promoted teams of recent years have not come up and spent money with as much planning and consideration as Sunderland have.
We’ve bulked up the defence to the point where I back us to stop the opposition from scoring in almost any game, and the fact we’ve done this in half of our league outings so far is proof that it’s working.
