Whilst it is not officially confirmed, Sunderland will be playing Premier League football once again when the 2026/27 campaign kicks off in August.
The Black Cats are 14 points clear of the bottom three with seven matches left to play, which means that it would take an unprecedented swing of results to see them go back down to the Championship.
Regis Le Bris' squad are on the verge of officially achieving their objective for the season, which was to avoid the drop, after winning the second tier play-offs last year.
Regis-Le-Bris
Now, the French head coach may already have one eye on what is to come in the summer, despite still having seven Premier League matches left to play this season.
When the summer transfer window opens for business, the Black Cats will not want to be complacent because of their achievements this year.
The first area Sunderland need to improve this summer
The first area the club need to address this summer is the forward line and adding more goals to their squad, because they have not had enough reliable sources of goals.
|Fewest goals scored in 25/26 PL|
|Club|Goals scored|
|---|
|Wolves|24|
|Nottingham Forest|31|
|Sunderland|32|
|Crystal Palace|33|
|Burnley|33|
Sunderland have the fourth-best defensive record in the Premier League, conceding just 36 goals, but they have also scored the third-fewest goals, finding the back of the net just 32 times.
Brian Brobbey is the club's top goalscorer in the Black Cats with a return of six goals, and no other player in the squad has scored more than four goals in the division.
This means that Sunderland may well end the 2025/26 campaign without a single player in double figures for goals since the 2014/15 Premier League season, when Connor Wickham led the team for goals with five strikes.
brian-brobbey-sunderland-premier-league
Therefore, Le Bris should push the club to add more goalscorers to the ranks when the summer transfer window opens for business, whether that is through signing attacking midfielders, wingers, or strikers.
In order to faciliate more firepower coming into the building this summer, the Sunderland boss must also be ruthless and cash in on a star who was once their best signing since Amad Diallo.
Why Sunderland must cash in on £5m forward
Amad was an inspired signing by the Black Cats because he scored 14 goals in the 2022/23 season to lead the club to the play-offs under Tony Mobwray, as a loanee from Manchester United.
Wilson Isidor, though, became the club's best signing since the Ivorian wizard when they brought him in on loan from Zenit in 2024 before signing him permanently for £5m a year later.
The Haiti international hit the ground running at the Stadium of Light with 13 Championship goals, along with one goal in the play-offs, last season to earn promotion to the Premier League, going one step further than Amad did on Wearside.
Sunderland's Wilson Isidor
Isidor was a revelation for the Black Cats, finishing as their top scorer in a promotion season, hence why he was their best signing since Amad, but he has not found it as easy to make an impact in the top-flight.
Since scoring four goals in the first ten games of the season, the 25-year-old centre-forward has failed to find the back of the net in 16 successive league games for Sunderland.
25/26 Premier League Wilson Isidor
Appearances 26
Goals 4
Key passes 0
Assists 0
Pass accuracy 56%
Ground duel success rate 30%
Aerial duel success rate 27%
Astonishingly, Isidor has not created a single chance for his teammates in 26 appearances in the Premier League this season. For context, even playing a three-yard pass to a player who then shoots over the bar from 30 yards would count as a key pass.
His all-round play has not been up to Premier League standard, given his struggles as a passer and in physical duels, and his run of 16 games without a goal shows that he is not making up for his performances with goals.
Wilson-Isidor
In February, Paris FC, Everton, Nottingham Forest, and Crystal Palace were all credited with an interest in the 25-year-old attacker, which suggests that he will have suitors if Sunderland opt to cash in on him this summer.
Therefore, Le Bris must move on from the Haiti international as the first summer sale, despite him once being a phenomenal signing for the club, to make way for more prolific forwards to, hopefully, come through the door ahead of next season.
Le Fee Related
The next Enzo Le Fee could sign for Sunderland this summer
Sunderland could go in for this exciting star in the summer, as Regis Le Bris hunts down his next Enzo Le Fee.