The gap between the Championship and Premier League is supposed to be a gaping chasm, yet in the space of a couple of months, Regis Le Bris and his players have demolished the notion that it is impossible to feel at home in the top-flight in your first season.
Yes, the fixture list might have been relatively kind. But to have 14 points from the opening eight matches, with three wins and a draw from the opening four home games, is still a remarkable achievement, setting Sunderland up perfectly for the challenges that lie ahead.
It is a result of many things, not least the coaching ability of Le Bris and the quality of the side that had been assembled in the Championship, but it is impossible to reflect on the strength of Sunderland’s start and not be wowed by the quality of the club’s recruitment this summer. Already, we can safely say it was exceptional.
Sunderland’s recruitment team knew what they wanted in the summer, and they got it. They wanted additional quality. Le Bris, in particular, demanded a certain type of character, willing to buy in to the sense of togetherness and common purpose that had been engendered in the second tier. Crucially, there was also an acknowledgement that if the Black Cats were going to survive in the top-flight, they needed physicality, power and athleticism.
Sunderland signed quality footballers in the summer window, but they also assembled an impressive collection of athletes. Omar Alderete and Nordi Mukiele tower over pretty much everyone they come up against. Granit Xhaka is a supreme playmaker, but he also knows how to handle himself. Remember those days in League One when Sunderland’s creative playmakers would turn up at somewhere like Accrington and be knocked sideways within the first minute? That’s not going to happen anymore.
Instead, you get what we saw on Saturday as Wolves, supposedly one of the Premier League’s most physical sides, were completely unable to cope with the intensity and power of Sunderland’s play. For a 15-minute spell in the first half, as Mukiele delivered a series of long throws and the Black Cats’ players pinned their opponents back into their defensive third, it felt like men against boys. For once, though, it was not the latter wearing red-and-white.
“It was an important criteria during the transfer window,” admitted Le Bris, whose side climbed to seventh in the table with Saturday’s win. “We wanted to add physicality, the ability to run and the ability to be good in the air.
“This league is really tough, especially on set-pieces, so if you are not dominant or at least at the same level as your opponents, you will struggle. If you look at something like long throw-ins, then we have the opportunity to be dangerous now.”
That athleticism and physicality doesn’t just extend to the players that were signed in the summer. Enzo Le Fee might be a masterful technician, but on Saturday, he willingly ran himself into the ground to shackle Wolves’ creative midfielders and help protect those playing around him. Chris Rigg was a stick-thin 15-year-old when he broke into the first team. Now, while still just 18, he is a bulked-out physical exemplar, more than capable of handling himself amid the relentlessness of life in the Premier League.
“You have no choice, you have to be like that,” said Le Bris. “You have to run, defend, because you are playing for your life on the pitch. We had two sides to our game. The first was really good with the ball, really positive. The second was about defending together, and showing character and desire to protect the goal. We showed both, which is really positive.”
Most of Sunderland’s front-foot play was on display during the first half, when the intensity of their performance was too much for a Wolves side who remain winless, and seemingly destined for a season-long battle against the drop.
They opened the scoring when Mukiele played a wonderful one-two with Trai Hume before squeezing the ball through Sam Johnstone’s legs, and almost doubled their lead when Hume headed against the post after Dan Ballard flicked on a long throw.
Wolves rallied in the second half, but with Ballard and Omar Alderete winning headers and producing blocks, Robin Roefs was not really threatened.
Instead, it was Sunderland that settled things with their second goal in stoppage time. Chemsdine Talbi broke on the counter-attack, and when he tried to find his fellow substitute, Eliezer Mayenda, Ladislav Krejci slid the ball into his own net.