Patrick Roberts leaves Sunderland as a double-promotion winner – a winger who brought belief, created moments, and gave fans reasons to dream again
Patrick Roberts leaves Sunderland as a hero, a double-promotion winner, and a player whose magic will linger long after his final touch of the ball in red and white.
Whenever Roberts picked up the ball on the right flank, the Stadium of Light shifted. The hum of expectation turned into a roar of hope. He glided across the turf, weightless, almost faster with the ball at his feet than without it. A feint, a shimmy, a nutmeg – defenders twisted, fans rose, and time seemed to slow. You sensed something could happen at any moment. Players like Roberts are why we bother in the first place.
Roberts’ move to Sunderland benefited everyone. For him, it rescued a career that had drifted after nine separate loan spells from Manchester City, giving him the stability, belonging and the home he had been searching for. For Sunderland, it marked the start of a new identity – a proving ground, a wonderkid rehabilitation and development centre where talent could be reignited, reputations rebuilt and careers reborn.
Where Sunderland’s belief was reborn
Roberts’ Sunderland story truly began at Hillsborough. After four punishing years in League One, a fanbase desperate for something – someone – to believe in found it in Roberts. That goal against Sheffield Wednesday in the play-off semi-final wasn’t just a strike. It was catharsis. It was the sound of a club waking up.
And for Roberts, it meant even more. His Merseyside-born father, Neil, played a vital role in the fight for justice after the Hillsborough disaster, dedicating years to the families and survivors. He was eventually awarded an MBE for his efforts. That goal, in that stadium, carried a weight few could comprehend. It wasn’t just football. It was personal.
If Hillsborough lit the spark, Wembley three seasons later turned it into an inferno. Patrick Roberts’ perfectly weighted assist for Eliezer Mayenda’s equaliser against Sheffield United in the Championship play-off final didn’t just send Sunderland back to the Premier League – it reignited belief, identity and pride. That moment set the club on the path they are walking today. Without Roberts, there’s every chance Sunderland’s £150million-plus summer of ambition would never have happened.
And that pass might yet become one of the defining moments of this era. If Sunderland thrives in the Premier League, its importance will only grow. Roberts didn’t just contribute to history. He helped write it, and he did so with his trademark style and flair, the ball glued to his magical left foot. Mini Messi, he was our King.
Tony Mowbray was right about Patrick Roberts
Tony Mowbray once called Roberts “one of the best players in the Championship,” and he was right. The numbers never told his story. The artistry did. Yes, his goals and assists dipped at times, but his magic never did. Roberts delivered in the moments that mattered most: Wembley, Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United.
And that’s the thing about football – it isn’t about spreadsheets or statistics. It’s about what makes you gasp, what gets you out of your seat, what you tell your kids about years later. Roberts was that player, and if you don’t understand that, you probably never will. The greatest irony, of course, is that for all the criticism aimed at Roberts over his numbers, he delivered when it mattered – in the biggest games, on the biggest stages, when Sunderland needed him the most.
At Sunderland, Mowbray often spoke about his side containing “artists and soldiers.” Patrick Roberts was all of them. He was Picasso with the ball at his feet, Leonardo da Vinci in his vision, Van Gogh in his unpredictability, Dalí in his imagination and Michelangelo in the way he carved open defences. But, crucially, he worked and sacrificed himself for the cause.
For Sunderland fans of a certain vintage, decades from now, Roberts’ magical partnership with Amad Diallo during that fun season under Mowbray will be remembered with a similar reverence this generation recalls Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips or Marco Gabbiadini and Eric Gates.
That’s the company he belongs in now – because his time on Wearside was never just about goals and assists. It was about moments. It was about the feeling. It was about awakening a sleeping giant of a football club through sheer force of will and skill, reminding fans why they fell in love with the game in the first place.
Sacrifice, service and legacy
Roberts gave everything to Sunderland, often playing through pain. During last season’s play-off campaign, he battled through a grade 2A calf strain when others would have sat out. He didn’t because Sunderland mattered to him – and he knew Sunderland fans needed him. He leaves as one of the few double-promotion winners in the club’s modern history, joining a select group of players etched into folklore.
Football moves fast, sometimes too fast. Sunderland’s decision to sanction his loan to Birmingham City feels brutal because it is brutal. Roberts has been deemed too slow and lacking the necessary power to compete in the Premier League. That, unfortunately, is the harsh reality of top-level football. But Roberts wanted to play, not sit on the bench collecting a wage while doing very little, as many have done at Sunderland previously. That choice, too, speaks to his character.
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There’s sadness in his quiet exit. Unfortunately, Roberts departs without the goodbye in front of a packed Stadium of Light that his rich contribution so definitely deserved, no standing ovation, no farewell wave. But he leaves with something greater – a legacy woven into Sunderland’s story forever – and who knows what the future could hold? To Birmingham fans: look after him. Because if Patrick Roberts gives you even a fraction of the joy he gave Sunderland, you’re in for something unforgettable.
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