Marked for Robin Roefs
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sunderland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
He is 21, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Gabriel Jesus
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 144% of everything Sunderland earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Everton, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Sunderland have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
Everybody has an opinion about Robin Roefs
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Shots: 10, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2026
A one-man rearguard from Robin Roefs
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Omar Alderete was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match26 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
4.84 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
Market28 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Robin Roefs’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
Granit Xhaka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match29 Aug 2026
Chemsdine Talbi scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Arsenal, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.90 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.51 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.10, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Habib Diarra
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Sunderland have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Sunderland did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Sunderland heard it as anything else.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Omar Alderete commits to Sunderland for another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Omar Alderete was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Romaine Mundle has come up in conversations Sunderland were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Robin Roefs, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market3 Aug 2026
Granit Xhaka wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Sunderland hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sunderland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Reinildo signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Reinildo and Sunderland agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Omar Alderete knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Omar Alderete trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Reinildo's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.