Patrick Roberts is currently on loan at Birmingham City.
The 28-year-old remains a fan favourite on Wearside, and played a key role in last season’s long-awaited promotion back to the Premier League. The decision was taken to allow him to leave Wearside on a temporary agreement in the latter stages of the summer transfer window, however, and the wide man has wasted little time in endearing himself to supporters in the Midlands too.
Roberts has one goal and one assist across his first six Championship outings for Birmingham, with Chris Davies’ men just three points off the play-off places at this relatively early stage of the campaign.
But while his focus is firmly on helping the Blues to a second successive promotion, Roberts has taken the time to laud Sunderland during a wide-ranging chat with his new club’s media team.
What has Patrick Roberts said about Sunderland?
Speaking in an interview earlier this week, Roberts said: “Every fan thinks their club is the biggest and the best, but like Birmingham, Sunderland really are a massive club, a huge fan base, and big expectations. When I first went there, they were at their lowest point in League One, and I just wanted to go and help them. They gave me the opportunity to play, and I wanted to give something back and help them to achieve what they wanted and give some joy to the fans. I enjoyed Sunderland, it was very similar to here and I think that what Sunderland achieved, so can Blues.
“With the experience of playing in this league and winning two promotions at Sunderland behind me, I'm looking forward to this season and seeing where we can go. It is such a relentless, difficult division to play in and I think having players who know what it takes is very valuable. You have to be physically right to get through 46 games, playing Saturday and Tuesday for long periods, but you have to have the right character and mentality too.
“However well you do in the end, there will be periods in the season where it gets tough, where results are going the wrong way. You will have bumps in the road, but at the end of the day, the main objective is to get promoted. You have got to keep that idea in your mind and if you do have a defeat, you learn from it and you move straight on to the next game and put things right. That is never easy, but that’s how successful teams do it. I think that is something I can bring to the squad this season, and hopefully many other things as well.”
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Interestingly, however, Roberts also revealed that he believes the best stint of his career - individually speaking - came not at the Stadium of Light, but during a loan spell with Celtic between 2016 and 2018.
He said: “With Celtic, people here maybe never quite understand what comes with that, but there is pressure to win every game. Rangers came back to the top division in my first year there, so you had the derby game, which you have to win, then there is the expectation to win the league and the cups, and to do well in the Champions League. It is not a place where you go and if you lose a game, they accept it! You have to win game after game.
“That was where I got my first taste of the importance of that and where I learnt that real desire to win every game. That's a good thing to get at a young age and I think that gets factored into the development of young players a lot more now, getting them out to play under pressure. You need to get all the experience you can from wherever you play, because getting into men's football early is always beneficial.”
Roberts added: “Brendan Rodgers was fantastic. He was known for bringing in young players at Liverpool and then when he came into Celtic, he still looked to do that whenever he could. Chris Davies was there as well. He was starting out in his first assistant role, and he was great to work for. He was really good with me, and I learnt a lot from both of them and the players at Celtic. I really enjoyed my time there, it was some of the best football I've played.”
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