"Inferior horse" Sunderland almost had the best start in the history of newly promoted Premier League teams

After all three newly promoted teams were relegated for two consecutive seasons, people originally thought that the three new teams who were promoted to the Premier League this year would have many difficulties, at least at the beginning of the season.

If we want to classify the three newly promoted teams this season, the "highest horse" must be Leeds United or Burnley. After all, both teams won 100 points in the Championship last season. People have reason to classify Sunderland as a "lower horse". After all, they trailed Leeds United and Burnley by 24 points last season in the Champions League, and their 58-goal offensive power of 46 games is only 9th among the 24 teams in the Championship, and scored the final goal in the injury time period in both rounds of the upgrade play-offs. In other words, Sunderland was able to upgrade, which was pure luck.

But the "Black Cats Legion"'s start of the Premier League this season was beyond everyone's expectations.

In the first 6 league rounds, they won 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 losses and had 11 points, ranking fifth in the standings. This is the best start for the Premier League promoted team since West Ham United (also 6 rounds and 11 points) in 2012-13. In the entire Premier League history, only the newly promoted Nottingham Forest, who started better than them in the 1994-95 season, had a better start in that season. Forest team scored 14 points in the first six rounds of the game.

Sunderland doesn't look like the relegated and promoted teams in the previous two years. They look like they belong to the Premier League, and their results have severely ridiculed the claim that the gap between the Premier League and the Championship is too large.

Unity is strength

This summer, Sunderland's personnel flow was very frequent, with 14 new players joining. Despite this, they still showed a very strong team spirit, looking like an old partner who has been fighting together for many years.

"It's so important," coach Regis Lebris said last week. "Unity is an iron rule. If you don't work for the team, you can't stay with the team."

"Even now, this atmosphere is very contagious. For new players, I think we recruited very well because their personalities fit very well with our roster."

The challenges to management that such a large-scale flow of players cannot be underestimated. In addition to ensuring new players adapt to the team, Lebris must also maintain the overall positive atmosphere of the team, as many of the key players who helped the team upgrade have been abandoned this season.

Of courses of the 30 players who played for Sunderland in the Championship last season, only 9 have played in the Premier League this season, and two of them have already played in Sunderland. Among the players who stayed in the team, former captain Daniel Neal only made a substitute in the second half in stoppage time against Aston Villa. Neal was the longest player in the mid-League last season, but the summer signings left him completely losing his position.

In addition, currently 10 "old men" in Sunderland's first team did not get even one minute of playing time in the Premier League last season. Of course, some of them will be dissatisfied with their situation, so Lebris needs to make sure that there will be no negative emotions that will trigger conflicts within the team.

So far, there has been no sign of this. The players are all tied together and are fighting for each other, which is perfectly reflected in their 1-1 draw with Aston Villa two weeks ago.

could also turn the tables against the wind

On that day, Renierdo was sent off for reckless invasion of Marty Cash. At this time, the game only took 33 minutes, and Sunderland had to fight 10 people for the remaining hour, but for most of the game, they were the better side.

Villa is in poor form this season, but they are still a strong team. In the 67th minute of the game, Cash gave Sunderland another heavy blow, and his goal helped Villa take the lead. At that time, Opta supercomputer predicted that Villa's winning rate was as high as 89.2%, but Lebris's team tenaciously broke this probability and finally equalized the score.

In this way, they became the only team in the Premier League this season that can still score the score without falling behind and having one person behind. Only one team has done this throughout the 2024-25 season, that is, the final champion Liverpool, and they have done this twice, with their opponents being Fulham and Crystal Palace.

Obviously, it is very difficult to reverse the game when a player is sent off, and usually it is not something a team of new players can do.

Youth is capital

Despite the huge changes in the team's roster, Lebris insists that he has put in some effort to maintain consistency.

"We didn't start from scratch this season, our characteristics are always there," he said.

Having a young team is part of the club's characteristics and what Lebris has always insisted on. After upgrading from the League One in 2021-22, Sunderland played in the Championship for three seasons, each of which their average starting lineup is the youngest in the Championship. In the Premier League this season, only Chelsea (24 years and 143 days) has a younger starting lineup than them (24 years and 346 days).

Sunderland's roster has many talented young players, such as midfielders Sadiki (20) and Habib Diyala (21), right-back Hume (23), winger Taleby (20), and goalkeeper Roeffs (22), who just won the Premier League Player of the Month nomination in September, who conceded only one goal in three games that month.

This season, Royves ranked first among all goalkeepers in the Premier League.

The veteran Lao Dangyi Zhuang

The nomination for the Premier League's best player in September are Manchester City's Haaland, Kamada Odi of Crystal Palace, Brighton's Yankuba Minter, Arsenal's Subimedi and Roeffs' teammate Zhaka. Zhaka's performance is also excellent, but he is the only player in Sunderland to raise the average age of the entire team..

Zha, 33, chose to give up the opportunity to compete for the Bundesliga championship and participate in the Champions League this summer and left Leverkusen to return to the Premier League. He joined a team like Sunderland, which is destined to regard relegation as the highest goal, which has aroused a lot of speculation.

One possible explanation is that he feels that he needs to prove himself in some way. Zhaka is a midfielder with excellent ball-handling skills. Previously, both at Arsenal and Leverkusen, they were the dominant side on the court, which provided many conveniences for Zhaka's performance. Now, he joins a team with weak ball possession ability. Sunderland has an average ball possession rate of only 43.2% so far this season. He wants to try whether he can still maintain his level in such an environment.

This means doing a lot of chores. In the first 6 rounds of the Premier League this season, Zhaka's running distance reached 66 kilometers. Only 7 players in the Premier League ran more than him, and those 7 people were at least 3 years younger than him. He is one of only two players over 30 in the top 25 running distances, the other being Bruno Fernandez.

Zhaka also ranked in the top 15 in terms of interceptions (7 times) and regaining the ball (28 times). Meanwhile, he ranked No. 1 in clearances (26) in addition to the defender, which shows how important he played in the most important position.

Zachar's performance provided solid protection for Sunderland's defense and laid the foundation for the team to win in Premier League level games. In the first 6 rounds of the Premier League, only Arsenal and Crystal Palace (3 each) conceded fewer goals than Sunderland (4).

"We had a clear position from the beginning," Lebris said. "We have to do a good job of defense and endure hardships together because the Premier League is really hard. If these foundations are solid, we can start to show ourselves."

Zachar is crucial to Sunderland, who not only provides protection for the back line, but also seizes their relatively rare offensive opportunities, which are difficult for them to gain an advantage in any game and have no big chance to squander.

So, they must be extremely efficient when attacking. In the first 6 rounds, they scored 7 goals with just 5.7 expected goals, and only 15 shots were on the 20 Premier League teams.

Zachar contributed all assists to Sunderland's last three Premier League goals, which means only Gallish (4 times) has more assists than him in the Premier League this season. The Swiss international's efficiency is reflected in his contributions to three assists after only creating eight opportunities, while his expected assists were only 0.63.

In times of peace, we must be prepared for danger

In an era when the newly promoted team struggled for two consecutive seasons, Sunderland's performance should be awarded the praise it deserves.

Lebres' outstanding performance was also recognized, and he was nominated for the Coach of the Month for the second consecutive time.

But you have to admit that Zachar's creativity and Roeffs' save are important factors in Sunderland's current results. According to the expected standings, they should actually be ranked 13th with Sunderland's ability to create opportunities and the quality of defense. Perhaps all of this indicates that their recent excellent form will be difficult to sustain.

On October 4, they lost 0:2 to the Red Devils Manchester United, who was in dire straits in the 7th round of the Premier League, and the alarm bell has sounded.

Just like at the beginning of the season, relegation is undoubtedly still the primary goal of the "Black Cats Legion".