Sunderland will play in Europe for the first time in 53 years next season. The Europa League isn’t a prospect many were expecting, even at the start of last week and especially not at the start of the season. The competition itself is not that complicated once you know how it all works, although UEFA have done their best to make it much more confusing (albeit with a trade-off of making it a lot more interesting to watch, I’d argue). We are no experts, having never been in this position...

Sunderland will play in European football for the first time since the 1973/74 season after beating Chelsea 2-1 at the Stadium of Light. A first half goal from Trai Hume gave us the lead before we doubled our advantage five minutes into the second half via an own goal from Malo Gusto. Cole Palmer made things nervy by scoring less than 10 minutes afterwards though, and a Chelsea red card didn’t seem to alleviate any of the nerves, but we held on and finished seventh place to confirm Europa...

On this day in 2003, current Sunderland defender (on loan at VfL Wolfsburg) Jenson Seelt was born in Ede, the Netherlands. Seelt began his career at an early age with amateur Dutch outfit Fortissimo, moving to NEC Nijmegen aged nine and then PSV aged 14. He signed his first professional deal in 2019 on his 16th birthday and would make his debut in a senior competition for the first time with PSV Eindhoven under-21s in the Eerste Divisie (the second tier of football in the Netherlands) in...