Sunderland’s excellent start to the 2025/26 season continued with their best result yet: a 2-1 win at Chelsea on Saturday.
We bring you the key notes, quotes and statistics from Stamford Bridge in this piece.
MARESCA ON PEDRO, ENZO + CAICEDO
It was a grim day for owners of Chelsea players, aside from the two who combined for the Blues’ early lead: assister and maximum-bonus-collector Pedro Neto (ยฃ7.0m) and goalscorer Alejandro Garnacho (ยฃ6.3m).
After all the pre-match buzz about FPL’s cheapest forward, Marc Guiu (ยฃ4.2m), getting a start, and Joao Pedro (ยฃ7.5m) potentially benefitting from playing deeper as a result, it was a laboured Chelsea attacking display – and from those two especially.
For the third time in five Gameweeks, Pedro didn’t manage a single shot. In fact, you have to go back to Gameweek 3 to find a match in which he had more than one effort:
Above: Joao Pedro’s attacking breakdown in the last six Gameweeks
His manager offered mitigation after full-time, commenting on the fitness of the Brazilian as well as Enzo Fernandez (ยฃ6.7m) and Moises Caicedo (ยฃ5.9m):
“I think Joao is not training every day because he’s managing a little bit himself from the injury problem. Moi [Caicedo] is exactly the same, Enzo [Fernandez] is exactly the same. We have four or five players who unfortunately, because of some problems, they cannot work every day and they try to make the effort to play the game. So, Joao, in some games, has been better; today he struggled a little bit. But today I think overall all the players struggled today, so it’s not just about Joao.” – Enzo Maresca
That hasn’t stopped 150,000+ managers from making Pedro the most-sold player of the Gameweek. Sunderland at home was the last-chance saloon for many, and he came out sober.
Guiu meanwhile managed just 10 touches all game. While overall touches often isn’t the best metric to judge forwards on (think the regular ‘ghosting’ of Jamie Vardy before he inevitably scored), it did betray the fact that he struggled to get into the game amidst the Black Cats’ defensive smother. One of his two efforts, a header, basically just hit him and left him with little time to react.
With Liam Delap (ยฃ6.2m) back this week, there may not be too many further chances for Guiu to impress.
ENZO DEEPER… SORT OF
Pedro playing off Guiu meant Enzo dropping back into a nominal central midfield position alongside Caicedo.
While there was a bit of probing passing from deep, especially in the first half, he ended up box-crashing again as a right-sided ’10’ as the game progressed. There were four shots from the Argentine midfielder after the interval, as many as he’s managed in a game all season. It’s also more than Pedro’s total in the last six Gameweeks…
Above: Players in Chelsea v Sunderland sorted by expected goal involvement (xGI)
At the back, there was a vote of confidence in Josh Acheampong (ยฃ3.9m) from Maresca, with the budget defender getting the nod again over Tosin Adarabioyo (ยฃ4.4m). Tosin came on for his teammate later in the game, not covering himself in glory for Sunderland’s winner.
SUNDERLAND DEFENCE IMPRESSES
There was no clean sheet for Sunderland defenders, nor were there any defensive contribution (DefCon) returns.
But make no mistake about it, this was a fine defensive display from the visitors.
Chelsea had the lowest xG of the eight Premier League teams playing on Saturday, with a lot of their threat (seven of their 16 shots) coming from set plays. Garnacho could have scored a second at the back post from a corner but aside from that, the Blues created little of quality. One incident where Neto should have played in Garnacho with a simple square ball, only to play the pass behind his fellow winger, summed up the day.
“I think we were not good enough. Lack of creativity. We didn’t create a lot, apart from the goal probably. And we struggled. Also, I think, you know, we need to perform. We need our players to perform 100%. And even with 1-0, we lost some duels, we lost some second balls. And against this team, you need to win that.” – Enzo Maresca
Sunderland had already proven themselves to be a stubborn team in a back four this season. But here they were in a back five, with Lutsharel Geertruida (ยฃ4.5m) added as a third centre-half and Reinildo (ยฃ4.0m) returning to have a stormer at left-back. They choked Chelsea’s lightweight attack.
Conceding a decent number of shots but few of real quality is great for Robin Roefs (ยฃ4.6m): he collected two save points from his six stops, not one of which came from a shot scoring more than 0.12 xG.
The Mackems’ assets probably won’t be high on FPL shopping lists in the medium term, with some tough fixtures to come. Instead, their role is going to be as adversaries to many of our players:
Now we have to legitimately ask ourselves when considering captaining, for instance, Bukayo Saka (ยฃ10.0m) in Gameweek 11: is this really a favourable fixture?
ISIDOR ON TARGET
Wilson Isidor (ยฃ5.6m) bagged his third goal of the season, prodding in from close range after Chelsea failed to deal with a long throw.
He’s now started the last six matches, with this goal timely as he had drawn a blank in the last three. He lashed into the side netting earlier, too, in another bright showing.
Attractive at that price, he knows he has to continually perform with positional rivals Eliezer Mayenda (ยฃ5.0m) and Bryan Brobbey (ยฃ5.5m) breathing down his neck.
Brobbey, indeed, came off the bench to provide a fine bit of hold-up play and assist for fellow sub Chemsdine Talbi‘s (ยฃ5.5m) winner.
