When Chemsdine Talbi slotted the ball into the bottom corner of the Chelsea goal, securing a famous and morale-boosting early-season away win for the Lads, it came at the end of an encounter during which
we’d shown all of the hallmarks that’ve underpinned our 2025/2026 campaign: dogged determination, impressive resilience and iron-clad fighting spirit.
A victory at Stamford Bridge is always something worth shouting about but despite Sunderland enjoying a successful return to the Premier League, it’s fair to say that our triumph over the Blues has been the exception rather than the rule when it comes to picking up all three points away from the Stadium of Light.
It’s a glaring yet fixable issue and for a team with aspirations of sustained progress, it’s important to be truthful regarding weaknesses in our armoury. This doesn’t mean we need to tear the Lads down if they fall short on the road, wheeling out tired old labels such as “liability”, but it’s important to be fair in the final analysis.
Don’t get me wrong: Sunderland have achieved some notable results on the road this season and we’ve rarely if ever looked out of our depth when travelling around the country.
A draw at Anfield, a come-from-behind share of the spoils at Tottenham and a 0-0 with last season’s FA Cup winners at Selhurst Park were superb outcomes, but Saturday’s intriguing encounter with Arsenal — during which we competed wholeheartedly before being undone by some moments of Gunners’ quality — represented the third trip to London in a row during which three goals have been conceded and another occasion on which the Lads often didn’t help their own cause.
In fairness, we didn’t make the trip to the Emirates with a timid mindset or a meek approach, and there was no lack of effort from Sunderland’s players.
We clearly went there with the aim of at least making life difficult for the hosts — and this was no West Ham-style shambles — but one or two lapses in concentration were taken advantage of, and perhaps chasing a consolation goal was somewhat naive given the manner in which the third Arsenal goal came about. Elite opponents aren’t charitable and in their case, the chance to go nine points clear was never going to be passed up. Brutal, but this is where we are.
It’s probably fair to say that a large proportion of Sunderland’s troubles away from Wearside can be attributed to the learning process that the players and Régis Le Bris are going through at Premier League level: the importance of tactical flexibility, minimizing individual errors, not giving the opposition any easy openings, and so on.
Although it’s not necessarily a “trial and error” dynamic, there’s a certain degree of trust needed as the players get to grips with it. Occasionally it’ll work and sometimes it won’t, but newly-promoted sides rarely have all the angles covered and we’re no different.
Becoming a more dangerous travelling side is also a test of our mentality.
This season, we’ve seen the power that a raucous stadium can provide when the Lads run out at home, but in different environments where the travelling fans may make up a modest fraction of the crowd, can we improvise, adapt and overcome in order to emerge with something to show for it?
Again, that’s fine and the good thing is that it gives us a genuine target to aim for next season — improving our away form and bringing it up to par with how reliable we are at home is something to relish, and given how driven and motivated these players clearly are, why shouldn’t we get it sorted?
This season, there are three away results in particular that have needled me for some time.
Our trip to Turf Moor and a loss to relegation-bound Burnley was most definitely a missed opportunity; we perhaps underestimated a Manchester United side in the depths of Ruben Amorim’s reign of misery at Old Trafford, and our last-gasp loss to Fulham after a scrappy goal from Raúl Jiménez was just frustrating as hell. Three games from which we should’ve taken something — and on such fine margins can league placings swing.
For years, we chased what often felt like an impossible dream of turning the Stadium of Light into the kind of place where we could thrive and that opposing teams didn’t relish a visit to.
The next stage of the process is to ensure that this talented group of players can be consistently relied on to deliver away from home — and I’ve got plenty of faith that they can do just that after some eye-opening experiences on their travels during 2025/2026.
