Anthony Patterson’s Sunderland exit should not overshadow the decisive role he played in the club’s remarkable rise from League One to the Premier League
If you are enjoying Sunderland’s Premier League season – the unbeaten home record, the statement wins over Newcastle United and Chelsea – then Anthony Patterson deserves your thanks, even if he has not played a single minute of league football this campaign.
Because Sunderland would not be here without him. Goals change scorelines. Saves change outcomes. They hold games in place when they are threatening to run away. Sheffield United should have been beyond reach last May. Instead, Sunderland were still standing. For all the noise that surrounds promotion finals, it is often incredible moments that decide everything. For Sunderland, it was Patterson’s saves as much as it was anything else.
Of course, Tommy Watson scored the winner. Eliezer Mayenda provided the spark. History will remember the goals – and that VAR decision. But Sunderland’s £200million return to the Premier League was kept alive by Patterson, twice, long before the decisive moments arrived. One minute in, a Sheffield United chance that demanded a reaction. 69 minutes gone, Sunderland trailing, the margin narrowing to nothing. On both occasions, Patterson stood firm.
Without those interventions, there is no comeback. No Wembley eruption. No Premier League future. That is the inconvenient truth in any reassessment of Anthony Patterson’s Sunderland career. He has faced criticism. Plenty of it. Some fair, some not. Goalkeepers exist in an unforgiving space, where hesitation is punished, and calmness can be misread as passivity. Patterson never looked urgent, never looked rushed, and never pretended to be something he wasn’t. But when it mattered most, he delivered.
Sunderland’s relationship with goalkeepers has always been heavy with expectation. From Jimmy Thorpe and Jimmy Montgomery to Jordan Pickford, the position carries history. Patterson did not chase comparison; he carried responsibility. He broke into the side at a time when Sunderland needed reassurance more than spectacle, stability more than innovation.
His rise was neither protected nor accelerated. He waited through the 2018–19 season, signed his first professional deal in 2019, and made his competitive debut in an EFL Trophy defeat at Fleetwood Town in November 2020. It was unglamorous, but it was formative. The loan to Notts County was pivotal. It toughened him. It tested him. And when Sunderland recalled him amid injuries, he seized the opportunity with maturity beyond his years. With the backing of Kristjaan Speakman, Patterson was trusted as a first-team goalkeeper. That trust was repaid in full.
The League One play-off final against Wycombe Wanderers offered the first proof. Sunderland won 2-0, but the platform was control. Patterson’s saves were not extravagant; they were authoritative. He did not chase moments. He extinguished them. Just ask Sam Vokes. It is easy to see why that performance lingered in the mind of then-Sunderland head coach Alex Neil, and why he has since taken Patterson to Millwall.
Three seasons later came the Sheffield United final - the game that altered Sunderland’s financial and sporting trajectory. Two saves changed everything. One at the start. One at the moment of maximum stress. Sunderland were still alive because their goalkeeper refused to blink. Those moments are not footnotes. They are the foundations of promotion.
Patterson’s playing style was often misunderstood. He was calm, safe, deliberate. He recycled possession without urgency, trusted his defenders and brought composure to moments of chaos. Robin Roefs, by contrast, offers greater assertiveness – more aggression in his positioning, more initiative in the build-up and when dealing with crosses, and greater assurance with his feet over short, medium and long distances. That profile better suits where Sunderland are now.
But goalkeepers do not reinvent themselves. Patterson should not be judged for being what he always was. His temperament and style were exactly what Sunderland needed when he emerged – during a period of fragility, pressure and expectation. The reality is unavoidable: Roefs is the superior goalkeeper. That is not a slight on Patterson. It is progression. Football does not pause for sentiment, and Sunderland have moved decisively.
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What must not be lost, though, is context. Anthony Patterson leaves the shirt in a much better condition than he found it and then some. He upheld Sunderland’s proud goalkeeping lineage. He delivered in two play-off finals. He was central to a double promotion that dragged his boyhood club from League One to the Premier League. And while others will be remembered for goals, assists and headlines, Sunderland’s return to the top flight was preserved by a goalkeeper who made the saves that mattered most.
Like his close friend Dan Neil, having helped Sunderland climb back to the top flight, Patterson was not afforded the chance to lose his shirt. Yet far from sulking, the goalkeeper remained a positive and respected presence on the training ground. New number one Robin Roefs has spoken openly about how helpful Patterson was as he adapted to a new league, a new country and a new club last summer. That, perhaps more than anything, speaks volumes.
Without Patterson, there is no promotion. Without promotion, there is no Premier League future – a fact as undeniable as it is uncomfortable for his naysayers. Whatever comes next after his loan spell at Millwall, Patterson departs this January with his record intact and his place in Sunderland’s modern history secure. Not as an afterthought, but as a decisive figure in the club’s revival. And who knows what the future may yet hold.
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