Brilliantly and fantastically, Sunderland are in Europe.
A membership solely promoted to the Premier League through the play-offs final yr, who haven’t graced the European panorama since 1974, and whose opening scorer right here in Trai Hume price £200,000 when he was signed in 2022 whereas they have been nonetheless in League One.
Embarrassingly and terribly, Chelsea are usually not, this singular afternoon on the Stadium of Mild summing up their whole season as they ticked all of their wretched bins.
An completely unserious perspective? Tick – save for Levi Colwill, Chelsea’s defenders appeared as if that they had already checked out of this marketing campaign. A defensive disasterclass? Tick – Hume’s opener concerned a easy lengthy ball and header on, and Malo Gusto’s unusual personal aim gave Sunderland their unassailable lead. Dire self-discipline? Tick – Wesley Fofana fouled Wilson Isidor when he was already on a yellow to depart the guests right down to 10 males whereas trailing 2-1, changing into their tenth crimson card of 2025-26, or 11 if we rely the one proven to earlier supervisor, Enzo Maresca.
It was solely after an agonising 10 minutes of added time that Sunderland’s followers deservedly bought to gentle their crimson flares within the stands.
Chelsea plunged to even higher lows with an embarrassing and entitled show at Sunderland
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The celebrations have been wild, these in attendance understanding it is a historic achievement, a generational triumph. Their gamers performed like they knew that, too.
Chelsea’s didn’t. They carried a way of entitlement, and that’s not how soccer works. The gamers can have identified their incoming supervisor Xabi Alonso was watching from afar, and but they rarely appeared to offer a lot of a rattling, with this season finale overseen by their interim, Calum McFarlane.
Fofana could also be amongst those who Alonso wouldn’t thoughts promoting this summer time. He’s unlikely to be the one one.
With out European soccer, you wonder if a mass exodus will now must occur at Chelsea. Not solely as a result of a couple of of their gamers might imagine they nonetheless should be at a membership within the Champions League, however as a result of a bloated squad isn’t any good while you solely have the Premier League and two home cup competitions troubling the calendar.
No matter add-ons are acquired for Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke profitable the Premier League and probably the Champions League with Arsenal – and they’re nowhere close to the made-up £30million and £20m figures claimed on-line respectively – it won’t cowl the price of this collapse. We aren’t speaking peanuts, however definitely nowhere close to a sudden injection of £50m.
What a waste of a season it has been for Chelsea, who will now watch Sunderland in Europe subsequent time period as an alternative.
IS ENZO CITY BOUND?
After full-time, Chelsea’s gamers trudged in the direction of their away followers.
Joao Pedro apologised, Marc Cucurella applauded, and Enzo Fernandez waved. Whether or not that was goodbye for the summer time from the Argentinian or for good stays to be seen.
Maresca likes having the odd acquainted face in his squad after taking signings with whom he had already labored to every of the three golf equipment he managed. There was Adrian Bernabe to Parma, Callum Doyle to Leicester, Kiernan Dewsbury-Corridor to Chelsea, to call a couple of.
Maresca is now set to succeed Pep Guardiola at Manchester Metropolis, and he and Fernandez had an particularly shut relationship at Chelsea.
Enzo Fernandez apologised to supporters on the finish as hyperlinks to Man Metropolis proceed to depth
Cole Palmer scored however his lack of consistency is strictly why he isn’t going to the World Cup
The 46-year-old Italian preferred Fernandez – sufficient handy him the captain’s armband barely a month after the Argentinian, now 25, was accused of singing a racism music following their 2024 Copa America triumph. Described him as his model of Declan Rice or Ilkay Gundogan. Referred to as him a frontrunner. Believed he was world-class.
Whereas there was overwhelming on-line noise surrounding Fernandez’s state of affairs heading into this summer time – inevitable contemplating his personal agent, Javier Pastore, admitted they’ll ‘discover different choices’ if an applicable contract extension shouldn’t be forthcoming – Chelsea sources declare there is no such thing as a concrete replace from their aspect and that they continue to be solely rumours.
The hypothesis that Metropolis are decided to snap him up might but show true, after all. Fernandez considers himself an elite participant, worthy of these competitions that Metropolis can be competing in whereas Chelsea won’t.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD FOR PALMER
When Cole Palmer was introduced as a Coca Cola ambassador final month, true to model, the corporate’s PR workforce have been fizzing to inform us how he could be fronting campaigns together with throughout the upcoming World Cup. The ‘coldest link-up but’, they known as it.
Barely awkward now that Palmer has been excluded from Thomas Tuchel’s England squad, together with a good few others who you think about can have been checking the provision of villas in Ibiza this final week.
Palmer scored a cracker from 25 yards right here, however he struggled to dictate this contest total.
Not because the Membership World Cup closing win over Paris Saint-Germain have we seen what we would describe as a ‘correct Palmer efficiency’. The kind the place these in attendance stroll away pondering, oof, he’s one the world’s greatest.
