Can the Black Cat's Bridge the Gap?

Are Sunderland the Championship's last hope? 

Sunderland have just completed the dream return to the Premier League, securing their first top division win since 2017 by beating West Ham 3-0. The Hammers had the lion's share of possession with 63%, but two-headed finishes followed by a 92nd-minute breakaway finish from Wilson Isidor capped a memorable match day for the Mackems. 

Sunderland joined the 2025/26 Premier League roster as, on paper, the third-best Championship side, having gained entry via the playoffs. Many have viewed the Black Cats as destined for the drop, with Betfair giving them odds of 1/3 to go down, odds only better than their promotion peers, Burnley. Additionally, the losses of key promotion heroes Tom Watson and Jobe Bellingham spelt woe for the Wearsiders. 

However, amongst the negative noise, Sunderland have allocated their funds well this summer securing, as of today, eleven new signatures and the permanent signing of fan favourite Enzo Le Fee. The Black Cats haven't just used their money haphazardly; instead, key areas have been addressed, such as the gaps left by Watson and Bellingham being filled by the Premier League-proven players Simon Adingra and Granit Xhaka. The squad now boasts a foundation of young, hungry players eager to prove their worth on the big stage, in addition to Premier League and Champions League experience. Seven of the new signings started against West Ham, marking the beginning of a new era for Sunderland.

While the new signings and momentum are positives for Sunderland, the Black Cats will still find the odds stacked against them. The gap between the Premier League and Championship is seemingly bigger than it has ever been, with the past two seasons seeing the newly promoted sides return to the Championship at the first opportunity. It is evidently getting harder and harder to become a permanent, or even semi-permanent, outfit in the Premier League. 

However, the issue isn't necessarily that the three newly promoted sides are going down each year. The issue is that the other seventeen sides are staying in the Premier League each year. The gap is going to continue to widen more as the less-promoted sides stay up, as the other seventeen teams will then continue to earn Premier League revenue year by year, helping them to fund transfers of a disparity in quality to their newly promoted counterparts.

The answer to Premier League survival isn't necessarily just spending funds on the best Championship players either. If we look at Ipswich's business before the beginning of last season as a case study, the Tractor Boys brought in the best Championship talent in the form of Jaden Philogene, Jack Clarke, Sammie Szmodics and Jacob Greaves as well as the Premier League experienced Ben Johnson, Julio Enciso and Kalvin Phillips to add to a squad that only lost six games in the Championship season prior. Ipswich finished 16 points from safety.  

So if the top Championship players aren't deemed good enough for the Premier League, and the newly promoted sides cannot attract enough players deemed good enough for the league, then is there any hope left?

One could liken Sunderland's summer spending and subsequent squad to Ipswich's from last season and claim that the intelligent acquisitions will all be in vain. However, I would argue that Sunderland's squad contains players who will only improve as the season continues, who have evidently been able to gel quickly and seriously outperform an experienced Premier League outfit. It also shouldn't be underestimated just how important a first win is for momentum, which Sunderland were able to achieve within the first 90 minutes of the season.

Outwardly however, it is the case that for a newly promoted team to stay up in the division, one of the other seventeen teams needs to have a serious off-year. The teams earmarked for this potential implosion have been Wolves, West Ham and Brentford. Each side has lost either one or multiple star players, with these players mostly all joining fellow Premier League Sides.

Looking at last season's relegation scrap, the fate of the best-performing promoted side, Leicester City, only looked potentially secure due to the decline of Wolves, but when Wolves went on a six-game winning streak between mid-March and late-April, Leicester could only watch. The outcome of the promoted sides is seemingly not decided by how well they do, but by how badly one of the other seventeen does. 

I do honestly think that the three promoted teams this season are the last crop of promoted sides that have a chance of staying up, as I think the revenue disparity and what comes with, will just continue to grow and grow. 

It's a very big ask, but if one team is going to survive, I'm placing my bets on it being the Sunderland wildcard. And I really hope they do, for the sake of the league.