It's time to take Sunderland seriously. Coming into the season, I never imagined I'd be saying that, even if I felt that the Black Cats were not going to be easy relegation fodder. That's just the nature of promotion to the Premier League. Moving on up may come with a lot of money, but the teams the newbies join have that money and more, which is why it's so devilishly hard for a newly promoted side to stay up. To use the most recent example, last season's promoted trio all went straight back down to the Championship, and Sunderland's fellow promotees this time around, Burnley and Leeds United, find themselves in the thick of the relegation battle. Sunderland, though, is nowhere near that morass. Through 11 matches, the club is in fourth place in the Premier League, with a tidy record of 5-4-2 and 18 points sending them, for the moment, into top-four contention.
Let's get one thing straight: Sunderland is not "for real," if "for real" is defined by the narrow marker of "will actually fight for top four in its first season back in the Premier League since 2017." I don't think anyone, even at Sunderland itself, believes this run of form will last for the entire season. On the other hand, who cares? Sunderland is definitely "for real" in that it has soared above the relegation fray not with luck or bullshit, but with the solidity of a team that belongs in the Premier League. Sunderland wisely invested the aforementioned bounty that came with getting back into the Prem after eight years away, and its active summer transfer window has reshaped the roster into one capable of drawing with the mighty Arsenal—and score two goals in the process, something no team had done to the Gunners all season, in any competition—and occupy the upper fifth of the table totally on merit.
How has Sunderland managed it? First and foremost, it's with defense. Entering Saturday's match, the club was, by almost all metrics, the second-best defense in the Premier League, trailing only the impenetrable Arsenal itself. Manager Régis Le Bris has the team employing the increasingly popular strategy of pressing the opponent high during their build-up phase but retreating into a low block when the opposition works the ball up field. This flexible system looks to target the other team's possessions when they are most vulnerable while also stymieing them with numbers and organization when those possessions reach the dangerous areas. Coupled with that is the group's stoutness when facing set pieces, which was particularly important against Arsenal, one of the best set-piece teams in the world. The Black Cats entered the game giving up only two set-piece goals on the season, and were able to maintain that mark against the Gunners.
Now, focusing on Sunderland's defensive qualities isn't to say that the team can't get goals when it needs them. Saturday's come-from-behind draw was the fifth time the team has ultimately gotten a result from a losing position. In matches against Brentford (win), Aston Villa (draw), Chelsea (win), Everton (draw), and now against Arsenal (draw), Sunderland was at one point down only to claw back some precious points. Brian Brobbey's physics-defying equalizer in the 94th minute was Sunderland's second stoppage-time points-earner of the season. It may be too early to dub them the Cardiac Cats, but they're on their way. It's a varied attack that has led to such success. Sunderland can utilize long balls to striker Wilson Isidor, but it also plays nicely on the wings, using its fullbacks and wingers in combination with a midfielder to form a passing triangle that is basic in conception but highly effective in practice.
Lest it seem like Sunderland just manipulated its new Premier League riches to navigate itself above the murky waters of an early relegation battle, though—Brobbey was a summer signing, as was former Arsenal hothead midfielder Granit Xhaka, who has been the team's best player—two of the key cogs from the Championship playoff promotion last season have been just as crucial this year.
Isidor was kept quiet by Arsenal on Saturday, but he leads Sunderland with four Premier League goals this season. Even more important has been Dan Ballard, another former Arsenal player—the now-26-year-old joined Sunderland in 2022 after its promotion from League One back into the Championship—who came back to haunt his old club on Saturday. The match's opening goal was not a complicated one, but for Ballard—a center back with a knack for important goals, such as his winner against Coventry City in the promotion semifinal back in the spring—it was ecstatic. Following a long goal-kick from Robin Roefs, new signing Nordi Mukiele managed to get enough on the ball to knock it over to Ballard hanging out in the box, and after a small bounce, the big lad booted it in, the first Premier League goal allowed by Arsenal since late September:
Ballard would once again be at the center of a big goal in the match's dying embers. After Arsenal regained control of what had been a quite chaotic first half, tying things up by way of a lovely Bukayo Saka finish in the 54th minute and taking the lead with an even lovelier strike from important-goal-machine Leandro Trossard 20 minutes later, Ballard assisted Brobbey's equalizer, knocking on a header of his own that was just in the right spot for Brobbey to contort his body for the finish:
Ballard wasn't done, either. Two minutes later, with just seconds left in the match, Arsenal's Mikel Merino could have won it for the visitors, but the center back, and my pick for man of the match, kept it out and kept Sunderland's valuable point in play.
That's how it ended, and, thanks to Liverpool's 3-0 implosion at the hands of Manchester City, Sunderland now sits in fourth place on the table through 11 matches, its 18 points already more than Southampton got (12) the whole of last season. Sunderland just needs eight points to clear the totals from all of last season's relegated sides, and while 26 points alone might not guarantee safety this year, I'm about ready to say that Sunderland is "for real" enough to not worry about yo-yoing back down to the Championship.
To say Sunderland has definitively proven anything this early in the season would be premature. Still, though, the Black Cats confounded the presumptive title favorites for 45 minutes, hucking a big ol' spanner into Mikel Arteta's precise machine and grinding it to a halt. Arsenal is too good to look as bad as it did in the first half, and the Gunners showed their quality through two great individual finishes in the second, but that's the thing about Sunderland. These Cats don't even need to use nine lives, because the one they're living right now has been plenty exciting enough.
