Sunderland’s Defence: Time to Invest or Trap to Avoid?

Sunderland are seventh in the Premier League after Matchweek 8, and Bohemian Rhapsody is ringing all through the Stadium of Light - because “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”

HOW are Sunderland Football Club seventh in the Premier League? Wait, let me rephrase that: HOW are Manchester United actually in the top half of the league table?

In all seriousness, Sunderland have had an utterly brilliant start to the 2025–26 season. But is it sustainable? Or will they be singing “Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo” as they barrel toward relegation?

Let’s find out.

In eight games played, Sunderland have scored nine and conceded six. Their six goals conceded is the second-best in the league, while they’re seventh based on xGA. So they are overperforming, but not by a massive amount.

Robin Roefs has been a bit of a monster between the sticks, posting the second-highest save percentage in the league and saving about 2.6 goals over expected.

All in all, their defensive data is incredibly good. While I do expect the numbers to regress a decent bit, I don’t expect them to fall off a cliff. Perhaps, in actuality, they’re roughly a mid-table defence with a very, very decent chance of staying up. Either way, that’s better than expected in terms of defensive strength and clean sheet potential.

There is a caveat to Sunderland’s brilliant defensive data, though – they’ve had some pretty good fixtures thus far: WHU, bur, BRE, cry, AVL, nfo, mun, WOL.

This means that their next few fixtures are… terrible: che, EVE, ARS, ful, BOU, liv, mci, NEW. Only two of those sides are not in the top 10 for npXg this season, with half of them up there with the best (2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th).

Sunderland spent £183.4m on new signings this summer, marking the highest spend by a newly promoted club ever. It’s almost like Newcastle’s owners simply travelled 12 miles in the wrong direction.

Two key defensive signings (in addition to Robin Roefs) were Nordi Mukiele and Omar Alderete, who reportedly signed just to earn DEFCON points in FPL. Mukiele is averaging a whopping 12.50 DEFCONs per 90 - one of the highest in the league - meaning he effectively starts every game with a four-pointer.

Furthermore, he’s hit the +2 points threshold in five of the six games he’s started so far, and in the one he missed out, he still reached nine anyway. Stop playing with my transfer urges like it’s a ukulele, Mukiele.

Omar Alderete, on the other hand, averages 9.72 DEFCONs per 90 but offers slightly more attacking threat compared to Mukiele (0.13 vs. 0.11).

Is this when I mention they’re priced at £4.0m and £4.1m respectively? Whew.

Robin Roefs (£4.6m) has so far averaged 3.38 points per 90, which, all in all, is pretty decent. It was kind of expected, to be fair - you’d expect a team like Sunderland to concede plenty of shots, and if Roefs can farm a save point each week, that’s a pretty steady flow of returns.

That said, save points don’t exactly provide the same comfort as DEFCON points. And goalkeepers around that price range - Petrovic, Verbruggen, Kelleher - are all arguably more worth the money.

So I think Roefs is an easy avoid (said no architect, ever). Even though Sunderland’s defence is pretty decent, I don’t think it’s good enough to warrant owning a set-and-forget goalkeeper from - nor are the saves coming at an extraordinarily high rate per match.

While I think Sunderland defenders (particularly Mukiele and Alderete) are brilliant options for their price, they’re far from must-haves. In essence, there are only two scenarios where I’d actually use FTs to buy them:

Ultimately, Sunderland’s defence isn’t likely to run as hot as it has been, and their upcoming fixtures are really, really bad. I can’t see more than one clean sheet in that run, and while 3–4 points every week is still incredibly good, transfers may be better used elsewhere.

Lastly, though Mukiele and Alderete will be available during AFCON, half of Sunderland’s team won’t be, and it’s reasonable to expect some… questionable performances there. This long-term fragility further reinforces them as avoidable for me.