DON'T PANIC (YET)

Sunderland’s transfer window hasn’t been quite the disaster some people are making it out to be.

Sunderland haven’t been as active in the transfer window as expected, with Thomas Meunier being the only addition on a free transfer from Lille. Dayann Methalie was set to be our second signing after a long and quite frankly drawn out saga with Toulouse, but some back issues found in his medical have delayed the transfer.

The club have also been in another saga with Sporting Club de Portugal for their winger Geny Catamo, with a rumoured £33m + £7m in add-ons being the latest offer rejected by the Portuguese giants.

With the new Premier League season starting this weekend, Sunderland are heading to newly promoted Ipswich Town with only one new player and some fans are starting to grow frustrated with the club’s lack of transfer activity but is it really as bad as it seems?

It’s important to remember that this was the most relaxed transfer window and pre-season the club have had in quite a long time. There’s no promotion races or (hopefully) relegation battles to prepare for, Sunderland were in a nice spot heading into this new season. You have to go back to the 2012-13 season for the last time Sunderland were in a similar position to now, which was shown with only six new arrivals on Wearside that summer.

The main aim was to keep hold of as many valuable assets as we can, and we’ve successfully done that so far. Other than Chelsea’s pathetic pursuit of Granit Xhaka back in July, there hasn’t been any documented approaches for our other stars which is a breath of fresh air. Eliezer Mayenda and Lutsharel Geertruida are the only players who made at least 20 appearances last season who have since left and neither were guaranteed to be key players this season, let's be honest. Despite the lack of incomings so far, we also haven’t actually lost any key players. It’s more or less the exact same squad that finished 7th last season and they’ve all got another year of Premier League experience under their belts now.

The main concern our fans have is the added weight and stress of being involved in a European competition. Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest are great examples from last season, where both went on deep runs in their respective competitions while also just narrowly avoiding relegation to the Championship.

However, you could argue that Crystal Palace were naive in their planning for last season and looking at their squad it’s not exactly a surprise they struggled. They also lost key players like Eberechi Eze and Marc Guehi without replacing them properly. Forest, on the other hand, had a season of unsustainability with four different managers as their squad should’ve been more than good enough to stay clear of relegation despite making the semi-final of the Europa League, so it’s not actually as cut and dry as it seems.

Sunderland played 42 games in all competitions last season and with the Europa League being added to our calendar this season, we’re going to be playing a minimum of 48 games bearing any runs in the cup competitions. So understandably the fans expected a few new arrivals in the door to help bulk up the strength in depth within the squad and that hasn’t happened so far.

However, we never needed to sign a lot of players. Sunderland brought in 16 new arrivals last season and it was unlikely we were going to sign half of that amount this time around. The club have lately announced they’re looking at bringing in no more than five new players this summer which makes sense when you think about it.

We’re not looking to improve our starting XI as such, more just bringing in some players to cope with the stress and tiredness the Thursday-Sunday schedule can cause.

Deadline day is September 1st, so there’s still time for Sunderland to bring in at least three new additions which isn’t that big of a task. You have to go back to the 2018-19 season for the last time Sunderland didn’t sign anyone on deadline day in the summer. It wouldn’t be Sunderland if we weren’t still active right up until the final hours.

The Europa League doesn’t start until September 16th, so Sunderland have enough time to bring new players in and embed them in the squad. There’s also no international break in September this season either so the new players will be involved straight away, even if they are signed on deadline day.

My message to the fans is don’t panic now, things are still fine. If the window closes and we haven’t signed those three I mentioned earlier then we have the right to panic.

However, we must also remember that the board and the manager have earned the right to be trusted after the last few years and there’s always going to be plan A’s, B’s and even C’s in place.

Let’s enjoy the fact that football is back and we’re in for the most exciting season in over 50 years.