Why Sunderland WON'T Be Relegated This Season

No newly promoted team has extended their Premier League stay in the past two seasons. It's been three up and three down for back to back seasons. The gap between the Championship and the Premier League seems to extend more each year. Numbers from the previous season aren't available yet but in the 23/24 season, Premier League clubs earned over £315 million on average while Championship clubs earned about £40 million on average. The last team to bridge the gap was Nottingham Forest in the 22/23 season. Here's why I back Sunderland to be the next team to do it.

1) Top level investment

Over the past two seasons, especially last season, newly promoted teams have invested in keeping their Premier League dream alive. Below are their transfer expenditures:

24/25 season: Leicester spent £91 million. Ipswich Town spent £152 million. Southampton spent £123 million.

23/24 season: Luton Town spent £26 million. Burnley spent £111 million. Sheffield United spent £67 million.

In Nottingham Forest's promotion year in 22/23, they spent a whopping £198 million. They made 4 transfers worth £20 million or more including the transfers of mainstays Neco Williams and Morgan Gibbs-White. Their investment paid off and now they find themselves in the Europa League just a couple years later. Sunderland have made the biggest investment for a promotion team since Forest. They spent £188 million this summer. They've invested in young starters like Habib Diarra, Chemsdine Talbi, Noah Sadiki, and goalkeeper Robin Roefs. Sunderland is built to last but the part of their investment that I admire the most is the investment in experience. Guys like Granit Xhaka, Reinildo, Omar Alderete, and even young Simon Adingra have played lots of minutes of high level football. Xhaka was an anchor for an unbeaten team just two seasons ago. There signings aren't ridiculously flashy but they're smart. The Black Cats are betting on themselves, and you have to respect the owners for signaling to the league that they are going to give Premier League survival their best shot.

2) The Stadium of Light

Home field advantage needs to be important for Sunderland in order to survive. To start the year, they have two wins in two on their home turf. Last season in the Championship, they won 12, tied 7, and lost 4 playing at the Stadium of Light. It's hard to quantify the impact of their stadium. Those fans are boisterous, and they've seemed as inspired as players to start the year. The story of Sunderland's last decade has been a rollercoaster. They've spent grueling years in League One with only a flicker of hope and thanks to the fans they survived near financial ruin. Now they're back and will make the Stadium of Light their fortress. Watch one of their home games and you'll believe in their ability to do it.

3) Set pieces baby!!!

You might look at last year and say, “Where is he getting this?”. They only bagged six goals off set pieces last year. They've got all the qualities to capitalize on those moments this year though. They've already shown streaks of it. In their first three matches, they've scored three times off set pieces already. They have Premier League quality deliverers in Enzo La Fé and Granit Xhaka and big bodies to aim at in Mayenda, Isidor, Ballard, Alderete and others. Set piece mastery can get you a long way, just ask Arsenal, and if Sunderland can continue to tap into that it might be crucial in staying up.

4) Wounded dogs

Three come up and three go down every year. A tenured Premier League needs to drop for Sunderland to survive. Lucky for them, there are a couple sides that appear vulnerable. The three most likely drop victims have one thing in common: a goal deficit. A goal deficit is a term I like to use to describe teams that have sold their main sources of goals and assists without recruiting reliable replacements. The replacements don't need Premier League pedigree, but it definitely helps. You can have all the experience and history you want but if you can't score enough goals, you can't get enough points.

Wolves sold Matheus Cunha and Rayan Aït Nouri, their top goalscorer and their top assister respectively. Combined that puts them down 19 goals and 13 assists in the league. In terms of replacing the goals, they haven't done much. Jhon Arias will pitch in with a few goals and assists and so might Marshall Munetsi who joined in the winter. Fer Lopez is an unknown quantity for now. At the deadline they took a swing on a player, bringing in Tolu Arokodare from Genk. The striker bagged 23 goals in Belgium last year. I'm not saying Wolves don't have great attackers. Strand Larsen and Hwang Hee-Chan will bring in goals but even with those guys last year, they leaned on Cunha and Aït Nouri a lot.

West Ham have managed to hold onto Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paquetá so they've had less goal turnover than Wolves. They did lose a pivotal attacker in Mohamed Kudus. He had an up and down year but did score 8 goals and provided 6 assists. For me, his quality was justified by his stats. If Bowen and Paquetá stay healthy and hold their standard they might be fine but their Premier League status has felt like it's in a delicate balance since the departure of Declan Rice.

It pains me to bring up my last candidate, it's Brentford. The Bees are a well-run club. They do things the right way and have built a reliable group. Then, EVERYBODY left. Well not everybody, but they lost Bryan Mbeumo and Yoanne Wissa with their 39 goals and 11 assists. They were the best striker partnership in the league. They also lost midfield machine Christian Nørgaard to the Arsenal. The biggest loss of all may be their manager and leader, Thomas Frank. He instilled the DNA and spirit that made Brentford such a collective unit. Rebuilding and losing more than 40 goals is a scary situation even with the arrival of Dango Ouattara. Brentford will figure it out, but there will be bumps in the road. Keith Andrews may find themselves racing against time to find their cutting edge.

Those are the 4 reasons I believe Sunderland is going to stay up. It'll be a mountain to climb but this feels like the year a team comes up and stays for more, finally.