Sunderland captured the imagination of English football in the 2025-26 Premier League season. Having earned promotion through the play-offs in May 2025, the Black Cats returned to the top flight after an eight-year absence and confounded the sceptics by finishing seventh — enough to secure European football for the first time since 1973.

Yet heading into 2026-27, Sunderland find themselves once again among the bookmakers' favourites for relegation, behind only the three newly promoted clubs Hull City, Coventry, and Ipswich. Three broad concerns fuel that pessimism: poor underlying statistics from last season, the spectre of second-season syndrome, and the demands of a European campaign.

What the numbers say

Expected goals (xG) measures how well a side creates high-quality chances and prevents the same. By that measure, only relegated Burnley and Wolverhampton Wanderers posted a worse xG difference than Regis le Bris' side last season. West Ham United — who had the fourth-worst xG overall — were also relegated.

Sunderland scored three more goals and conceded six fewer than their xG figures would have predicted, overperforming by a margin exceeded only by Manchester City and Aston Villa. The majority of clubs finished roughly in line with their underlying numbers, confirming that Sunderland's results flattered their performances.

One major factor distorted the picture, however. The Black Cats were without six players during the Africa Cup of Nations in December and January — twice as many as any other Premier League club. Their form had already dipped from a strong start, but the squad's depletion during the tournament made matters considerably worse.

Once those players returned, Sunderland's underlying numbers recovered steadily, and they ended the season performing at a mid-table level. With no Africa Cup of Nations this season, that particular drain on squad depth should not recur. If they carry that late-season form into 2026-27, relegation would be a distant threat.

Second-season syndrome

The idea that promoted clubs often fall apart in their second top-flight season is widely held, but the data tells a more nuanced story. Sunderland and Leeds United became the 53rd and 54th promoted sides to survive their first Premier League season last year. Of the previous 52, only 11 were relegated the following campaign — a rate of 21 percent.

That said, there is precedent for a side with an outstanding debut season to stumble in year two. George Burley's Ipswich finished fifth with 66 points in 2000-01 — the highest points total and best finish any promoted club has achieved in a 38-game Premier League season — only to be relegated the following year, dropping 13 places and 30 points.

Overall, four of the 20 promoted sides that finished in the top half on their first season were relegated in their second, a rate of 20 percent. Sunderland themselves avoided that fate under Peter Reid, who guided the club to seventh in consecutive seasons around the turn of the millennium.

The European question

Playing in Europe for the first time in 53 years adds another layer of complexity. Sunderland enter the UEFA Europa League, facing at least eight additional fixtures on top of their domestic schedule. They are only the tenth promoted side in Premier League history to qualify for European football, and just the fifth to do so through a league finish.

Of the nine sides that came before them, five managed another top-half finish and only two were relegated — Ipswich in the early 2000s and Hull City in the mid-2010s. Hull's case was exceptional: they had scraped into Europe by reaching the FA Cup final despite finishing 16th, were knocked out of the UEFA Europa League in qualifying, and were relegated with 35 points the following May.

Ipswich's experience was more cautionary. When Inter Milan eliminated them from the Uefa Cup in December 2001, Burley's side had won just one of their first 15 league games. They never fully recovered and went down at the end of the season.

The more encouraging template is Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2019-20. Despite playing 17 games in the UEFA Europa League — reaching the quarter-finals — Wolves still finished seventh in the league again. Sunderland will be aiming for exactly that kind of balance.

The ingredients for a difficult season are certainly present. But for a club that has risen from League One to European competition in short order, the Black Cats and their supporters have earned the right to believe the doubters can be defied once more.