Ciaran McKennaSun, November 30, 2025 at 6:00 AM UTC·5 min readCiaran McKenna says…
Enzo’s excellence!He’s been brilliant so far this season but he stepped up a level in a central position.
A brilliantly dispatched penalty after a ridiculously long wait, and he worked excellently alongside Granit Xhaka and Noah Sadiki.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHe’s given Régis Le Bris a good problem to have with team and formation selection.
Brian ‘The Beast’ BrobbeyA great display off the bench.
He ran his socks off defensively, latched onto anything that came his way and topped it off with a beautiful header. Again, he’s giving Le Bris decisions to make.
Another incompetent refereeHe was terribly inconsistent and gave the wrong decision 95% of the time.
He was bad for us, but I wouldn’t say he was brilliant for Bournemouth either.
I feel I may have been led astray by the good officiating seen in the early league games — it’s only gone downhill from there.
John Wilson says…
Do call it a comeback!What a stonking comeback.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementFrom 0-2 to 3-2 —praise all round. From the crowd and the players to Régis Le Bris’ brave substitutions…absolutely superb.
Enzo Le Fée stands tallHe had a great game.
Apart from the thundering penalty, some of his flicks and tricks — especially in the first half — were tremendous.
If they don’t come off it can be frustrating, but for most of the match it worked, and he was like a magician.
Gift-wrapped goalsI know Christmas is coming, but we didn’t need to gift them two first half goals.
We looked at it and up for it, yet with two or three awful lapses in concentration, the first half was lost and the shape of the game changed. You can’t do that in this league — sloppy passing and Robin Roefs was way off his line and was lobbed for their second.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt was a battling and mostly on the front foot opening half that was spoilt by silly mistakes.
Tim Robinson: referee or extra in a Charlie Chaplin movie?Shall we just accept it’s going to be a negative every game? The fouls he let go, the pulling and holding… then he would randomly award a free kick.
The highlights may show that Nordi Mukiele wasn’t tripped shortly after our penalty but writing immediately after the match, I assume the ref thought, “You’ve just had a penalty, I’m not giving you another one!”
Once a referee lets too much go, it slowly becomes a free-for-all and the players take matters into their own hands. He almost lost control of the game.
Lars Knutsen says…
Resilience on display — again!This Sunderland team never knows when it’s beaten.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementTo come back from 0-2 down against a side playing very good football is an outstanding achievement, and there’s real steel running through the whole lineup.
The comeback was really important in the context of the upcoming games running up to Christmas, which look challenging.
Romaine Mundle is back!It’s been great to see players like Trai Hume, Dan Ballard, Wilson Isidor and Enzo Le Fée making the transition to the best league in the world, yet we have other attacking talents in Eliezer Mayenda and Romaine Mundle, who are both young and still contributed hugely last season.
Aside from a petulent yellow card late on, I thought Mundle had an excellent game after coming on as a substitute — he’s highly athletic and completely fearless.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA lack of early energy in the middleThe hangover from Fulham seemed to be hard to shake off early in the game, and Bournemouth were allowed to dominate the midfield in the first half hour.
I am sure that the coaching staff will address this, which we also noted against Everton. We recovered very well though after the penalty, superbly put away by Le Fée.
A great game of footballNot really a criticism as this was an outstanding game of football which Sunderland played a huge part in — even if took a while to come back, it was a great spectacle for neutrals.
The goals were all well-taken, especially the second from the visitors. There seems to be a real rash of goals from the centre circle these days, and Tyler Adams’ effort was close to unstoppable.
Tom Albrighton says…
Enzo Le Fée in the middleThe change to a back four almost spectacularly backfired — save for the unbelievable mental fortitude of the Lads.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEven at two down — and whilst the defending was soft for both goals — Sunderland looked the better team and that was largely thanks to Enzo Le Fée
Being moved centrally, we got to enjoy the talents he has to offer more than ever, providing a beautiful link between defence and attack that allowed Noah Sadiki and Granit Xhaka do what they do best.
With Romaine Mundle fit and making a nice cameo appearance to boot, the future for Le Fée must surely be in the middle of the park.
Sunderland show their mettleI won’t lie: I had the game written off after fifteen minutes because lived experience tells me that Sunderland sides 0-2 down at home in the rain just roll over and take the inevitable hiding they’re about to get — but not this team and not these lads.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNot for the first time and not for the last, Sunderland hunkered down, grafted, fought and got back into a game that threatened to run away from them.
It should’ve dawned on us by now but it still can’t fully compute: these lads have more bottle than they do talent, and the best thing is, they’re all really talented.
The subs make a big differenceIf Régis Le Bris copped a bit of flak for his substitutions last week, he should get a pat on the back this week.
It takes guts to drop players like Trai Hume, who’ve been ever-presents for so long and haven’t done a whole lot wrong, but Le Bris did it.
The real hit was when those who were dropped — perhaps unfortunately — came on, and there was no self-pity — just electrifying tenacity and game awareness which spurred us on to get the winning goal.
It may be unfair for Brian Brobbey to be a ‘super-sub’, but if he keeps throwing in performances like that and backing them up with goals, he’ll be adored before long.
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