As we look ahead to Sunderland’s Carabao Cup tie against Hull City and a welcome break from Premier League action, this presents Sunderland with one of the best chances of winning a domestic cup in fifty-three years.
For the first time in many seasons, Sunderland are competing on four different fronts this season and, if we take these competitions seriously enough, we have a genuine chance of lifting silverware at the end of the season.
We’ve already been given a ‘bye’ into the third round of the competition
after qualification for Europe was secured, and this already means we have one fewer game to play on the road to Wembley. Whilst it’s unrealistic to suggest that we should be challenging for two competitions alongside the Europa League and Premier League, it would be great to see us go a decent distance in one of the cups.
We’ve been given a very favourable home draw against newly-promoted Hull City and have avoided any of the traditional Big Six due to a bizarre rule that prevents us from drawing against each other in the earlier stages of the competition.
In recent seasons, we’ve tended to disregard the cups due to other priorities – whether that be an automatic promotion push or a race to avoid the drop. We’ve often bowed out in the first round of the cups in front of a rather poor home crowd to lower-league opposition on penalties, with our cup runs over before we know it.
This season, we have a much deeper squad than 2025/2026 and plenty of lads that are looking for a top-up of minutes after disrupted pre-seasons or wanting to get themselves in amongst Régis Le Bris’ thoughts as the season progresses.
This is also a great opportunity for some U21 lads to put themselves in the fray for regular first-team minutes.
With only two senior strikers, I’d imagine Le Bris will not risk Brian Brobbey or Wilson Isidor, and it would be great to see Finn Geragusian and Timur Tutierov get a good chunk of minutes from the start to build on their excellent pre-season showings.
Will we see a first start for Melker Ellborg after missing out on the Europa League squad? Will we see Dayann Methalie pull on the red and white shirt for the first time, and is it too soon to risk an injury for Malick Fofana?
I’m sure Hull will have priorities of their own and, after a great start to life in the Premier League, will not want to get drawn into cup-run distractions. Both sides will likely be heavily rotated from the weekend fixtures, thus providing us with a great chance to progress to the next round.
After embarrassing ourselves in last season’s FA Cup tie with Port Vale – where we would have gone on to have a favourable run to Wembley – we really should be giving the cups a good go this time. Although we do have three competitions alongside the Premier League, it’s going to take a monumental effort to win the Europa League whilst also having a strong Premier League season.
The FA Cup will run simultaneously with the knockout phase of the Europa League, and we’ll likely prioritise the latter.
The early stages of the League Cup will be a great way to balance the squad and keep the squad happy in regard to minutes, as well as go deep into the competition; if we get to the latter stages of the competition, we’ll start to take things more seriously.
For Sunderland supporters such as myself, the last trip to Wembley for a major domestic cup final is a vivid memory.
The weekend of the 2014 League Cup final against Manchester City was special and, although we ultimately lost on the day, the memories created are something that will last a lifetime. The lift it would give to the already thriving and rejuvenated city if we were to progress to Wembley can’t be understated.
A domestic cup final alongside the Lads going deeply in the Europa League and a top-half Premier League finish would make for a very good season – and I’m sure the whole city of Sunderland would once again take over Trafalgar Square and turn London red and white for the weekend.
It may also be worth noting our recent success since breaking the Wembley hoodoo – we’ve won three games from our last three Wembley appearances. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee anything, but the previous psychological hold was massive and now that this has been cleared, anything can happen.
In recent seasons, we’ve seen much smaller clubs go on to achieve great success in the domestic cups and, in particular, Crystal Palace, who’ve arguably had the greatest three years in their club’s history. Sunderland are in the healthiest position we have been in for over a decade, and it’s the perfect opportunity to kick on and bring real success to the football club.
I sincerely hope that Le Bris and his coaching staff recognise the opportunity that lies in front of them.
They’ve already created countless memories for Sunderland supporters in the short period of time they’ve been here, but if he was to become the first manager since Bob Stokoe in 1973 to win a domestic honour, he would sit among the the most highly esteemed within our great football club.
