Sunderland spend heavily

Sunderland are spending heavily in an attempt to ensure they last longer than a single season in the Premier League.  The club’s transfer business has raised eyebrows. Sunderland’s promotion team comprised a mix of academy graduates and low-cost acquisitions — the starting XI for May’s play-off final victory against Sheffield United required less than £10m to assemble.

Two months on, Sunderland now have the most expensive squad in the club’s history. Xhaka is the club’s seventh signing in a month. Add Roefs and some assumed agent fees and transfer levies, and we land at a gross spend this summer of £130m.

Sunderland are the seventh-highest-spending Premier League club this window, only trailing the traditional ‘Big Six’. On a net basis, including the Roefs deal, they’re this summer’s eighth-highest-spending club in the world.

After accounting for sales, alongside fees spent on Wilson Isidor, Milan Aleksic and Ahmed Abdullahi since the start of their financial year last July, The Athletic estimates Sunderland’s net transfer spend to be around £94m.

Sunderland’s outlay is reflective of plenty of things, but at least two obvious ones. First, the money involved in English football has never been greater; the figures clubs must reach to remain competitive grow each year.

Second, Sunderland have a lot of ground to make up. Spending on transfer fees is only weakly correlated with immediate success but, as The Athletic detailed recently, sustained spending over time tends to prove rewarding on the field.

Seventeen of this year’s Premier League clubs were in the division last year (and the year before that), and their squads have been built up accordingly. Burnley are back in the top flight after just one year away. Leeds United spent two years out of it. Sunderland last played in the Premier League in 2017.

Sunderland were only in the Championship for three seasons before winning promotion, and spent four years of their Premier League exile in League One. They still lost money, carrying infrastructure and running costs far too large for a third-division side, but in some ways, those seasons allowed for a reset.

Sunderland have proven adept at understanding the transfer market in recent years, selling players at significant profits. Bellingham’s June move to Borussia Dortmund is the latest such example. Even with the sell-on due to Birmingham City, his move should lead to a £20m profit.

Naturally, Sunderland believe the players they have signed are capable of performing in the Premier League. Should that prove insufficient to secure survival, they’ll trust their ability to move still-young players on without too much of a hit, ensuring those hefty future costs committed to this summer don’t actually materialise. The risk is they’ve bought poorly, but that’s true of any transfer.

The gap between England’s top two divisions, in many respects, has never been greater.   Sunderland aim to bridge it by spending big, something they can do — and, everything indicates, will continue to do — albeit while trying to remain true to the strategy that got them here in the first place. It might not work. But they certainly can’t be accused of not giving it a go.