2026/2027 season

Premier League

Team page
Premier League · Team page
Sunderland
Head coach: Régis Le Bris · Onze de départ vérifié contre Fulham le 30/08/2026 (Sunderland Echo) : Roefs ; Meunier, Mukiele, Ballard, Reinildo ; Xhaka, Le Fée, Sadiki ; Hume, Angulo, Brobbey. Conflit entre sources sur l'étiquette : le Sunderland Echo l'a lu comme un 5-3-2, mais son analyse d'après-match décrit Trai Hume utilisé comme ailier droit devant Thomas Meunier arrière droit et Nilson Angulo comme « numéro 10 », ce qui correspond plutôt à une défense à quatre (4-3-3 ou 4-2-3-1). Aucune formation officielle confirmée.
Rank
18th
Pts
4
P
6
Form
🟠 Poor

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings
3/10
Attack
3/10
Defence
3/10
Form
5/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:High

18th with 4 pts from 6 matches: 1 win, 1 draw, 4 defeats.

6 goals scored, 12 conceded.

Good afternoon and welcome to the live narration of the Premier League football game facing the Bournemouth against the Sunderland for Day 7. From the Sports World, we offer you all the coverage minute to minute, the previous, the alignations, the best games and goals of the encounter and the result with all the reactions to the post match.

Mundo Deportivo · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

The goal of Sunderland's victory at 90+3 was scored by Sadiki.

RTP Desporto · 15 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

After the 1-0 defeat in the opening round at Sunderland was now close but earned 2-1 from Hapoel Beer Sheva from Israel. Match winner became Mexx Meerdink, who used a penalty kick a quarter of an hour before his first ball contact.

NOS Voetbal · 15 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Sunderland's coach, Régis Le Bris, assured today that he prepared a visit to Torreense, for the Europa Football League, with the same rigour as a meeting of the English League, highlighting the quality of the Portuguese.

RTP Desporto · 15 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches
Lvs Brighton & Hove Albion FC (H) · 0-2
Lvs Manchester City FC (A) · 3-5
Lvs Arsenal FC (H) · 0-2
Dvs Brentford FC (A) · 1-1
Wvs Fulham FC (H) · 1-0
WDLLLL
6 scored / 12 conceded over 6 matches played
Rest: 8 days since the last match · 1 match played in the last 15 days
Home form
1W - 0D - 2L
Away form
0W - 1D - 2L
Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match
1.0
Goals conceded per match
2.0
At home
1 scored · 4 conceded in 3 matches
Away
4 scored · 6 conceded in 2 matches
Over 2.5 goals
1 of 5
Both teams score
2 of 5
Clean sheets
1 of 5
Failed to score
2 of 5
Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How Sunderland play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity
Preferred system
Onze de départ vérifié contre Fulham le 30/08/2026 (Sunderland Echo) : Roefs ; Meunier, Mukiele, Ballard, Reinildo ; Xhaka, Le Fée, Sadiki ; Hume, Angulo, Brobbey. Conflit entre sources sur l'étiquette : le Sunderland Echo l'a lu comme un 5-3-2, mais son analyse d'après-match décrit Trai Hume utilisé comme ailier droit devant Thomas Meunier arrière droit et Nilson Angulo comme « numéro 10 », ce qui correspond plutôt à une défense à quatre (4-3-3 ou 4-2-3-1). Aucune formation officielle confirmée.
Philosophy
A compact mid-block and a high press in phases, claimed by the head coach: “The flexibility of our mid-block is getting better, and we were brave on the high press” (Régis Le Bris, Sunderland Echo, 31/08/2026), backed by a deliberately stable group (“The core of the group is very good. The players are all in”).
Attacking strengths
An attack still short on productivity: 2 goals in 2 matchdays (Nilson Angulo in the 39th minute at Ipswich, Wilson Isidor in the 75th against Fulham). Against Fulham, the team had recorded only 0.07 xG at half-time despite 54% possession according to the Sunderland Echo, before finishing at around 2 xG once the substitutes had come on.
Defensive solidity
The current strong point: a clean sheet against Fulham, who did not manage a single shot on target all match (Sky Sports), and 2 goals conceded in 2 matchdays. Nordi Mukiele, back in the starting eleven, was rated 8/10 by the Sunderland Echo (“made countless important defensive interventions”). 2025-26 reference: 7th in the league with 54 points (worldfootball.net).
Pressing
A high press embraced and claimed as progress by Le Bris after Fulham (“we were brave on the high press”), but dependent on the energy available: the head coach attributes the turning point of the match to his substitutes — “Habib is so intense; so intense. As well as Wilson, they changed our press so it was tactically the same, but with 20-30% more energy” (30/08/2026). No figures (PPDA, height of ball recovery) verified.
Transitions
Not measured. Observed fact against Fulham: it was the pace and verticality brought by the substitutes after the 64th minute (Habib Diarra, Wilson Isidor) that unlocked the match, the goal coming from a Diarra cross converted by Isidor in the 75th.
StrengthDefensive solidity and the ability to concede nothing, the impact of the bench (Diarra and Isidor decisive against Fulham), the leadership of experienced senior players (Granit Xhaka, Thomas Meunier, Nordi Mukiele), set pieces orchestrated by Xhaka, the fervour of the Stadium of Light and total continuity of the project after a 7th-place finish in 2025-26.
WeaknessAn inability to create against low, compact blocks: this is the central problem identified by the Sunderland Echo after Fulham (slow build-up, a lack of movement off the ball, a right flank that has become narrow with Trai Hume lined up as a winger). A squad still a work in progress up front and at centre-back on the eve of the transfer deadline, and a fixture list made heavier by the club's first European campaign in more than half a century.

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood
Squad confidence
Good, carried by the season's first win against Fulham and by the imminence of the European campaign. Malick Fofana, prised from Lyon on deadline day, is in contention to make his debut at Brentford and Kevin Danso is immediately available: Régis Le Bris therefore has both of his last two signings for a difficult trip, Brentford having taken four points by beating Tottenham 3-0 and holding Leeds. The one shadow is Habib Diarra's thigh, after he came off against Fulham, and the head coach publicly hopes it is not serious. Selecting the 22 players registered for the Europa League also forced the staff to leave out six, an exercise new to this squad.
Coach / players / board relationship
A reshaped but aligned leadership structure: ownership Kyril Louis-Dreyfus / Juan Sartori, Tom Burwell interim chief executive since April 2026 (having joined the board as a non-executive director in January 2026), Florent Ghisolfi sporting director. Burwell speaks of “a summer of relentless evolution” and a club that must “continue scaling to compete across the Premier League and the Europa League”. No public friction with Le Bris reported.
Mood with the supporters
Fervour intact but tested by the wallet. As soon as the European schedule was published, air fares soared: a Manchester-Milan easyJet flight went from £81 to £1,092, a factor of thirteen and a half, and an Edinburgh-Milan Ryanair flight from £127 to £545, while a Manchester-Lisbon return climbed to £443. Local fanzine writer Paul Dobson puts at “probably £2,500” the budget needed to follow every away trip, and Michael Ganley, founder of the club museum, fears that “the cost of flights will lead some supporters into debt, but there is so much excitement”. Tour operators are offering packages from £543. The enthusiasm therefore remains huge, as the photo galleries published after the win against Fulham show, but the European season poses a real question of affordability.
Pressure on the head coach
Low. Le Bris is coming off a 7th-place finish and European qualification; the pressure comes mainly from relegation predictions in the media, which the dressing room publicly rejects.
Club objectives
The club expresses an ambition of growth rather than a numerical objective: Burwell speaks of “continuing to scale up to compete in the Premier League and the Europa League”. Kyril Louis-Dreyfus highlights the historic value of the European campaign (“for the club it will be a big moment to play in a European competition against a big European club like that”, about the trip to AC Milan). No numerical league-position target was found.
Recent internal tensions
No internal tension reported at this stage. The point of friction is external: the relegation predictions, notably that of Jamie Carragher after the defeat at Ipswich, which Nordi Mukiele has publicly rejected (“I hear some things outside about us that I don't like this, that we will go back down”).
Absences
InjuredHabib Diarra — Absent for the first two matchdays, with no return date given.
InjuredSimon Adingra — Ankle injury, return estimated around 12 September.
SuspendedDayann Methalie — Suspended for an accumulation of yellow cards, he should be available again in early September.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

Bournemouth — Sunderland

AwaySunday 18 October at 15:00Matchday 7
It's today. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says
  • Bournemouth - Sunderland, en directo | Premier LeagueGood afternoon and welcome to the live narration of the Premier League football game facing the Bournemouth against the Sunderland for Day 7. From the Sports World, we offer you all the coverage minute to minute, the previous, the alignations, the best games and goals of the encounter and the result with all the reactions to the post match.Mundo Deportivo · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated
Prediction
EstimateBournemouth — Sunderland
46 %
1 · Bournemouth
24 %
X · draw
30 %
2 · Sunderland
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 6 matches played by Bournemouth, 6 matches by Sunderland. Confidence: medium
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
  1. League average. 189 goals scored over 130 team-matches played (20 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 1.45 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
  2. Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
    TeamGoalsRawKept
    Bournemouth — attack7 in 6 matches0.800.90
    Bournemouth — defence13 in 6 matches1.491.25
    Sunderland — attack6 in 6 matches0.690.84
    Sunderland — defence12 in 6 matches1.381.19
    The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.50 for Bournemouth and 0.50 for Sunderland. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
  3. Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 1.42 goal scored on average by the host against 1.42 by the visitor, over the 52 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.00; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.44, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.00. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
  4. Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
    Bournemouth at home: 0.67 pts/match versus 0.50 overall over 3 matches → ×1.091
    Sunderland away: 0.33 pts/match versus 0.67 overall over 3 matches → ×0.880
  5. Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
    λBournemouth = 1.45 × 0.90 × 1.19 × 1.00 × 1.091 = 1.70
    λSunderland = 1.45 × 0.84 × 1.25 × 0.880 = 1.34
  6. Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 45.9%, draw 23.7%, away win 30.4% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 1-1 (only 10.9%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
  • It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
  • The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
  • γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
  • The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
  • No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Goalkeepers
  • Robin Roefs
  • Simon Moore
  • Melker Ellborg
Defenders
  • Thomas Meunier
  • Nordi Mukiele
  • Daniel Ballard
  • Reinildo
  • Trai Hume
  • Omar Alderete
  • Luke O'Nien
  • Aji Alese
  • Dayann Methalie
  • Jenson Jones
Midfielders
  • Granit XhakaC
  • Enzo Le Fée
  • Noah Sadiki
  • Habib Diarra
  • Chris Rigg
  • Jules Ahoka
Forwards
  • Brian Brobbey
  • Wilson Isidor
  • Nilson Angulo
  • Romaine Mundle
  • Chemsdine Talbi
  • Jocelin Ta Bi
Squad last verified on 31 Aug 2026 — source: List cross-checked between the official starting eleven and bench against Fulham published by the Sunderland Echo (30/08/2026), the worldfootball.net 2026/27 squad page and the 11v11.com 2026-27 list; Xhaka is explicitly identified as captain by the Sunderland Echo (30/08/2026). The list is deliberately limited to players whose position is confirmed by at least one of these sources: it is therefore incomplete (Alan Browne, Abdoullah Ba, Hemir and Trey Samuel-Ogunsuyi appear in the Echo's transfer window review without their position having been verified). Jocelin Ta Bi, described as a winger, was close to a move to Burnley as of 31/08..

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss18 Oct 2026
Bournemouth - Sunderland, live - 124; Premier League
Source: Mundo Deportivo
rss15 Oct 2026
Torreense comes out defeated with Sunderland twist when falling from the cloth
Source: RTP Desporto
rss14 Oct 2026
"A Sunderland player is two years from the Torreense budget"
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
rss10 Oct 2026
António Silva's nightmare gives Chelsea a shot. Sunderland also loses
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
rss15 Oct 2026
Volnei submits candidacy to Puskás with this goal against Sunderland
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
rss15 Oct 2026
Torreense-Sunderland motivates English 'invasion' to Leiria
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
Club3 Sep 2026
Sunderland travel to Brentford on Saturday 5 September at 15:00, to a side on four points after beating Tottenham 3-0 and holding Leeds.
Source: Sports Mole
European competition3 Sep 2026
Sunderland have announced their list of 22 players registered for the Europa League. Chemsdine Talbi, goalkeeper Melker Ellborg, late signing Juan Riquelme Angulo, Aji Alese, Alan Browne and Jocelin Ta Bi are not on it, UEFA's registration rules not allowing everyone to be included. Eligible young players can be added during the season through list B.
Source: Sunderland Echo
European competition3 Sep 2026
The Europa League league-phase schedule is set: AZ Alkmaar at home on 16 September, trips to Torreense on 15 October and Lech Poznań on 22 October, Dinamo Zagreb at home on 5 November and Jagiellonia at home on 26 November, a trip to Milan on 10 December, to Anderlecht on 21 January, and then Levski Sofia at home on 28 January.
Source: UEFA
Supporters3 Sep 2026
Flight prices for the European away trips exploded as soon as the schedule was published: a Manchester-Milan easyJet flight went from £81 to £1,092, thirteen and a half times more expensive, and an Edinburgh-Milan Ryanair flight from £127 to £545. Fanzine writer Paul Dobson puts the cost of following every away trip at “probably £2,500”, and Michael Ganley, founder of the club museum, fears that “the cost of flights will lead some supporters into debt, but there is so much excitement”.
Source: Sunderland Echo
Institutional3 Sep 2026
The full reckoning of the summer under Florent Ghisolfi comes to nine arrivals, twenty-nine departures and eighteen new contracts signed, an administrative overhaul of some scale to absorb the twin demands of the league and Europe.
Source: Sunderland Echo
Institutional2 Sep 2026
Sky Sports mark Sunderland's window 7 out of 10. Keith Downie stresses that keeping the senior players, Granit Xhaka and Brian Brobbey chief among them, was decisive, with the late signing of winger Malick Fofana closing the window.
Source: Sky Sports
Transfers1 Sep 2026
The club secured the signature of Belgian winger Malick Fofana, signed from Lyon for £31m on a five-year deal, after Crystal Palace had briefly convinced the player with a £33.5m offer; owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus travelled to Lyon to close the deal.
Source: VAVEL
Transfers31 Aug 2026
On the eve of the deadline, the Sunderland Echo lists 13 files on the desk of sporting director Florent Ghisolfi: an offer submitted for Igor Paixao (Marseille, up to £34.2m according to Globo), an agreement on personal terms with Kevin Danso (Tottenham) reported by talkSPORT, plus leads on Matias Soulé, Malick Fofana or Geny Catamo. None of these transfers has been completed at this stage.
Source: Sunderland Echo
Result30 Aug 2026
Sunderland took their first win of the season on 30 August by beating Fulham 1-0 through a Wilson Isidor goal.
Source: VAVEL
Other30 Aug 2026
Sunderland beat Fulham 1-0 at the Stadium of Light for their first win of the season: Wilson Isidor, on as a substitute, scores in the 75th minute from a Habib Diarra cross after hitting the post in the 71st; Fulham did not manage a single shot on target.
Source: Sky Sports
News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.