So, the 2025/26 Season is now upon us. We start our season with an away trip to newly promoted Sunderland. They will be keen to kick start their return to the Premier League with a win.
Sunderland is never an easy game. We are well matched. We have played 92 games with 36 wins, 25 draws, and 31 losses in all competitions. I’m of an age before records ‘began’ with the Premier League. For you younger readers, if any exist, our Premier League record is – P30, W13, D10, L7. We are marginally better. With our Away Premier League record sitting on – P15, W3, D7, L5, not so good. Our last win coming on 31st March 2014.
There goes my optimism!
Transfer Window
Although to be fair there wasn’t much optimism to go, especially with our transfer window, bar the signing of Diouf. I really like the look of him.
Signing Todibo for £40m after him not overly impressing me on his loan spell last season. I’d have preferred to give Soler a chance. He had started to look decent once Potter came in.
Callum Wilson has all the signs of a Sullivan signing. However he has been known to score goals although last season in 21 games played, he scored 1 goal! The season before it was 10 goals in 26 and before that it was 18 in 36. Maybe we should have signed him then? Of course, that would never have happened, as Sullivan would have had to fork our decent money then!
Kyle Walker Peters is an unknown for me, happy to see how he does.
And Mads Hermansen falls into the same category. What concerns me is his clean sheet stats. For Brondby, he played 70 matches with 14 clean sheets and conceded 103 goals. At Leicester, he played 72 matches with 14 clean sheets and conceded 101 goals. Notably, he achieved only 1 clean sheet in the Premier League in 27 matches. Overall, he’s conceding 1.43 goals per game and a clean sheet 1 in every 5 games nearly! Is he really going to challenge Areola?
Well now I’m depressing myself!
Let’s look at the positives…….
Youth Development
We have an abundance of youth in our squad and Potter seems to like to develop and use them. Potts, Earthy, Orford and Marshall all hoping to see some game time this season.
Potts is coming back off two very successful loan spells. One was at League One Wycombe Wanderers, where he was voted Supporters POTY and Young POTY. The other was last season at Championship side Portsmouth.
Earthy has just spent last season at Championship side Bristol City where he was voted Young POTY.
And Callum Marshall was at League One side Huddersfield where he played 46 games, scoring 10 times. He was also voted their POTY. He is also a regular in the Northern Ireland squad.
I really hope to see some of those players getting good game time this season. And more game time for Scarles, I really liked the look of him last season.
Other positives include the return of Summerville. Paqueta being able to play freely and get back to his old self. Fullkrug staying injury free. Bowen being Bowen and Wan Bissaka continuing from last seasons Hammer of the Year performances.
I just hope Potter can get the best out the players at his disposal. He needs to find a system that suits the players and give us a season to enjoy with some fast attacking football. Including a couple of Cup runs.
The bookies have us 14th – 16th in the betting. I’m going to make a bold statement and say we will prove them wrong and will finish 12th. (Must remember to come back and read this at the end of the season)
Can we beat Sunderland to kick start our season? I’m going to say a 2-1 win! Fullkrug and Bowen!
COYI!
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