£12m Sunderland star delivers Championship promotion verdict amid Coventry City and West Brom competition

Chris Mepham has insisted it is too early to make predictions on where Sunderland will finish this season.

The Black Cats’ play-off spot looks nailed on as the 2024-25 season wears on, but it will be a stretch if Régis Le Bris’ men manage to overtake Burnley, Sheffield and Leeds United to claim an unlikely spot in the automatic promotion places.

Speaking after Sunderland’s game against Cardiff City at the Stadium of Light in March, Bournemouth loanee Mepham encouraged teammates and fans to take one game at a time and not look at who the Black Cats could face in the play-offs amid potential competition from Coventry and West Brom.

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“I think at this stage it's too early,” Mepham said when asked if Sunderland had one eye on the play-offs. “You look at someone like Coventry, five or six games ago, they weren’t there in the play-offs, whereas now they've put an unbelievable run together and now they're suddenly firmly in the play-off places. “

“So I think there's still a lot of points to play for, still 30 points up for grabs,” Mepham added after the Cardiff City game. “I'm sure there's teams that are in the play-off spots now that might not be there. So, like I said, we've just got to make sure we look after ourselves and hopefully carry that momentum on and, like I said, work on things that we potentially need to work on heading into those games and ask questions of the three teams in front of us.”

The Wales international, who joined Bournemouth from Brentford for a whopping £12million, won promotion to the Premier League with the Cherries and knows all too well what it takes to get out of the Championship and the quality required from a club’s playing staff.

“Fortunately, I was in a promotion team at Bournemouth, and there's similarities for sure in terms of character and individual brilliance in that team,” Mepham said. “We had people like Philip Billing and Dom Solankie, real special players and this team's full of them. Riggy, Jobe, Wilson, Eli, the list goes on. So yeah, definitely we've got all the ingredients there.”

He added: “Ultimately, like I said, we just need to manage the momentum and make sure that we keep lads that aren't getting the minutes that they probably feel like they need because at any given point, they can be so important. Hopefully, we're in a really good place come the end of the season.

Asked whether Sunderland’s players could step up to the Premier League next season if they are promoted this season, Mepham said: "For sure. I think they've shown not over a couple of games over the course of a long season, they've shown their quality week in, week out, and I think the names I mentioned, along with many others in the team, could definitely get to that level.

“I think at this stage it's about consistency and staying level that when you win two games like we have our last two games, that we stay quite neutral and we don't get too high and don't get too low. I think that's really important now,” he concluded.