Sunderland marked their return to the Premier League with a bang as they claimed a 3-0 home win against West Ham United.
It was all worth the wait for Sunderland supporters as the Black Cat marked the end of their eight-year absence from the Premier League with a dominant win against West Ham United.
The Stadium of Light was already rocking by the time the shrill of a referee’s whistle officially marked the return of top flight football to Wearside - and those noise levels only rose as Regis Le Bris’ side took the game to the Hammers. The scoring was finally opened on the hour-mark as Eliezer Mayenda became the first Sunderland player since Javi Manquillo to net a Premier League goal with a stunning header before Dan Ballard got in on the act with just over quarter of an hour remaining.
Substitute Wilson Isidor came off the bench to put the seal on a memorable day in injury-time as he collected a pass just inside his own half before racing goalwards and sending a fine effort beyond Hammers debutant goalkeeper Mads Hermansen. The post-match celebrations will live long in the memory for the Wearside faithful as the Black Cats produced the perfect start to what will still be a season full of major challenges.
Given their status as a newly promoted club, there should be little surprise Sunderland are still rated as one of the favourites to suffer relegation this season - but how likely are Le Bris’ men to avoid the drop? We take a look at how the win has impacted on Sunderland’s hopes of avoiding an immediate return to the Championship with the help of stats provided by Opta.
Opta predict each Premier League club’s chances of suffering relegation
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Liverpool - 0.03% Man City - 0.05% Arsenal - 0.07% Chelsea - 0.78% Newcastle United - 1.31% Aston Villa - 1.97% Crystal Palace - 2.80% Brighton and Hove Albion - 4.88% Brentford - 9.16% Bournemouth - 9.04% Nottingham Forest - 9.39% Tottenham Hotspur - 9.23% Manchester United - 11.24% Everton - 12.47% Fulham - 13.56% Wolverhampton Wanderers - 31.19% West Ham United - 31.35% Leeds United - 46.52% Sunderland - 52.93% Burnley - 52.03%
What did Regis Le Bris say about Sunderland’s win against West Ham?
Sunderland boss Regis Le Bris (Photo by Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)placeholder image
Sunderland boss Regis Le Bris (Photo by Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
Speaking after the win, the Black Cats head coach said: “I'm happy for the fans and the players and the club. We had different phases of pre-season and we spoke about the layers we needed to add. It was obvious that it starts from the foundations - we showed that the team is working well, they were hard to beat in a mid to low block. The first half was a bit more difficult but during the second half we felt we could get opportunities through regains in the middle and that we could score through counter attacks.”
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