Sunderland’s return to the Premier League could hardly have produced a more exciting outcome. Régis Le Bris’ side finished seventh in 2025/26, collected 54 points and qualified for the Europa League. Yet beneath that outstanding league position sits a statistical profile that looks considerably less secure. Sunderland scored only 42 goals, conceded 48 and finished with a negative goal difference despite ending the campaign above 13 other clubs.
With the 2026/27 season now under way, the question is not whether last year was successful. It plainly was. The more important question is whether that success can be repeated. Expected-goals data, Sunderland’s dependence on defensive efficiency, a relatively quiet transfer window and the addition of European football all suggest that the Black Cats could find their second season significantly harder.
The league table and the underlying data tell different stories
Sunderland’s 54 points delivered seventh place, but expected-points models place their performances much closer to the relegation battle. One model calculated that Sunderland produced approximately 43.5 expected points, meaning they exceeded their underlying return by 10.5 points. Another estimated 43.1 expected points and ranked the club 18th on expected performance.
That is an unusually large gap. Expected points are not a flawless prediction tool, but they help reveal whether a team’s results were supported by the quality and quantity of chances created and conceded. Sunderland’s seventh-place finish was real and deserved in the traditional sense, but the data indicates that it depended on winning a high number of tight matches and extracting more points than the balance of opportunities would ordinarily produce.
One retrospective expected-points table placed Sunderland 18th rather than seventh, alongside the division’s relegation-threatened teams. The exact numbers vary because different providers use different expected-goals models, but the direction is consistent: Sunderland performed substantially better in the actual table than their chance creation and prevention would predict.
Sunderland did not create enough…
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