How A Team Of New Signings Are Shocking The Premier League

Sunderland are fifth in the table and are shocking everyone with one of the youngest teams in the Premier League. In this Bad Boy, I'm going to be breaking down how they've transformed their team with 15 new players, why their central midfielders have heat maps like wingers, and why Granit Jaca is the key component that makes it all possible. So how have they started just so well with relatively unknown players? And crucially, how has their manager made this young side so hard to play against? Well, last season, Sunderland's line-up looked like this. And their manager, Reggie Labrie, often opted for a 4-2-3-1 formation. But only three players remained from that side in their first Premier League game this season. For this team to work, Reggie Labrie has had to change his formation to 4-3-3. And they've also had to change their style. Nobody has had fewer direct attacks than Sunderland this season. And that sounds like a bad thing, right? But let me explain why it isn't. Here, you can see that Sunderland's build-up is incredibly patient. With new goalkeeper Robin Roofs taking his time to play that initial pass. They're trying to bait the press of Astavilla in this scenario into a central area. Roofs waits for Morgan Rodgers to begin pressing him before passing laterally to Mokiela. And Sunderland's back four are completely spread here. Sunderland work the ball wide. And then Talby, the right winger, drops deep, which allows Hulme to keep the width. And this drags Kamara out of position. They then quickly work the ball to the other side, making the most of the width. And a key, key part of this is Reynaldo's positioning as a left-back, as he remains quite deep. And that allows Sunderland a constant out ball into a wide area without the pass being too difficult to execute. Now compare that to last season, and their left back would have been pushing really high. The first example of a tactical shift from the manager. Their passing network for the season shows just how frequently they look to play the ball sideways through their back four. But why is this? Well, this is because Sunderland are constantly looking to play down the sides of the pitch. Sunderland often look to create these wide triangles in possession, resulting in their two central midfielders to have heat maps similar to those of wingers, like we said at the start. One of which is Habib Diara, Sunderland's club record signing, who joined just this summer. And at just 21, he's already become a crucial part of the team. Here he is operating out wide, positioning in the half space where he receives the ball from Odingra and turns into space. And not only that, he combines this with excellent footwork and gets a shot away, all due to the space that he's picking up in wide areas. And he's also formed an excellent partnership with fellow new signing Talby. Couple that again with Diara's ability to turn in tight spaces and it allows for central ball progression in that middle third. The other great thing about Diara is that he is extremely direct. He drives into the box and gets another shot off. And I think the goals will definitely come through his wide positioning. His touch map against West Ham further emphasises just how wide he really was, which is really quite unusual for a central midfielder. Now onto the other side. Sunderland have Noah Siddiqui. Siddiqui has a similar role, but is slightly more conservative in possession. Against Forrest, he often picked up these half spaces so that when he got the ball, it attracted the Forrest players to him in central areas. And that created space for Masuwaku on the left side. He then made a darting run in behind to destabilise the Forrest defence and create spaces for others again. Check out Siddiqui's touch map against Forrest. And it reaffirms the fact that even as a central midfielder, he's actually looking to get wide pretty often. With both midfielders often leaving the central space, it's crucial then for the single pivot to be reliable on the ball and to retain possession. Otherwise, dangerous transitions become incredibly likely. And this is why Granit Xhaka, he is the key component that makes all of this possible and maybe makes him one of the signings of the season. Xhaka often uses long balls to funnel the play into those wide areas. Here he is instructing Mukiela to carry the ball forward to bait the press of Forrest. Taube then drops deep into possession, dragging Forrest's left back Zinchenko out of position to form a triangle with Mukiela and Xhaka. He played a bounce pass to Xhaka and instantly turned away. And the Sunderland players, they trust Xhaka. And when you freeze it here, you can see they remain high because of that trust that they have in him. And this sequence disrupts Forrest's back four, turning them into a back three with Zinchenko now out of the picture, making Niko Williams' Forrest right back hesitant to defend in a wide area. And this gives Xhaka the perfect opportunity to play a long pass into Masuwaku, who is keeping the width on the left. Sunderland play a ball into the final third with the Forrest defenders backtracking and quickly pin Forrest into their own box. This is Xhaka against Brentford in the 95th minute. He looks up and again plays a direct ball into a wide area, finding Enzo Le Fay in space behind. Le Fay gives it back to Xhaka, who plays it into the box with no hesitation, finding Wilson Isidor, who wins Sunderland the game in the final five minutes. Xhaka is already making a huge difference to the Sunderland side during build-up and delivering in the biggest moments. Sunderland's biggest win of the season so far came in a 3-0 victory over West Ham on the opening day, where they fielded the joint youngest First Eleven in the Premier League this campaign. Check out the momentum bar from this game and it shows that West Ham had large periods of dominance, yet Sunderland came away as comfortable winners. And although West Ham dominated the ball, Sunderland nullified their attack by defending man-to-man out of possession. They'd allow the first pass to go wide as they'd be tightly marking in central areas and this forced West Ham to go back and have to play long. And this frequently resulted in Sunderland regaining possession. This graph shows how they nullified West Ham's threat through the middle. In the second half, Ziyech was replaced by Alderete. This sub changed their threat going forward. Reinildo began to push higher and this led to Alderete becoming the spare man on this flank, which led to him even getting on the ball in really advanced positions. And this forced West Ham to drop back defensively, allowing for an early cross from Alderete, who found Maienda to score their first goal in the Premier League for eight years. And so the important thing to say here is that despite the line-up being 4-3-3 on paper, their positional flexibility helped them win that match. And that's exactly what Reggie Labrie is. A flexible manager. He does yoga. That's a joke and a rumour. I don't know if that's a fact. Anyway, against Nottingham Forest, they lined up in a 4-2-3-1. This allowed 18-year-old attacking midfielder Chris Rigg to come into the team. But the principles, they stay the same. With Xhaka operating as that single pivot and Siddiqui helps to form the left-side overload. And with two central midfielders deep in front of the defensive line, Chris Rigg could keep a high starting position. And this was really helpful because it allowed them to spark quick attacks from their own half, with Rigg using his technical ability to find Isidore and counter-attack quickly. But what ultimately proved to be the difference against Forest was their threat from set pieces. Sunderland have produced a shot from 45% of their dead ball situations. That's the third highest in the Premier League this year. So initially, Alderete stayed back as the free-kick was taken. Mukiela and Masuwaku applied physical pressure, allowing Alderete to sneak free at the back post to score the winning goal. In fact, this win saw them keep their third clean sheet of the season. That's the joint second most in the league. Now overall, they've only conceded four goals so far, with only Crystal Palace and Arsenal conceding less. So how has a side that isn't afraid to commit bodies forward been so successful defensively? Well, Sunderland press the ball from central areas, forcing the ball to be played out wide. From there, they ensure that any central players from the opposition are man-marked or tracked, making passes very difficult to execute for opponents, frequently resulting in Sunderland regaining possession pretty easily. This graphic of their defensive actions against Nottingham Forest highlights that point. What we can see is that most of their defensive actions came in wide areas. This was because Sunderland blocked Forest's progression through the middle. Therefore, there was less need for them to make defensive engagements in the middle of the pitch. But Sunderland are also exceptional at defending high up the pitch. Isidor initiates the press here. Meanwhile, he's backed up by his teammates, making it impossible for Konca to play the ball to his right-hand side, forcing Aston Villa to pass backwards to the goalkeeper. With Aston Villa wanting to play out from the back, Sunderland continue to press in numbers, effectively shutting off all central passing options. Oh, and did I mention they did this with 10 men on the pitch, forcing the ball into a wide area with no way out for Villa and forcing them to play long. And defending that way with 10 men is a little bit risky. And this long ball actually resulted in Aston Villa getting a chance at goal. So why am I even showing you that? Well, because when Aston Villa failed to take the chance, Sunderland regained possession and built another attack. They went from defence to attack by moving the ball quickly from one side to the other. And this move resulted in not one shot, three shots at goal and the third being a goal, following a delicate through ball header from, yep, you guessed it, Granit Xhaka. But we cannot speak about the defence without mentioning Robin Roofs. Not only has he saved a penalty this season, but he's also denied a total of 2.7 xg. No other Premier League goalkeeper has prevented more expected goals this season. So the risks that Sunderland are taking are totally justified because they've got a quality keeper at the back. And taking risks when you're 1-0 down and clawing back points is so massive in the Premier League. And strangely, Sunderland are doing it with a team with minimal Premier League experience. But yet they're sitting in a position that would see them playing in European football next season if they can stay there. Another new signing who's got off to a great start this season is Jack Grealish. If you want to click here, you can find out why nobody seems to be able to stop the main man.