Sunderland have kept hold of an overwhelming majority of their key players this summer.

In the age of social media and smartphones, it can sometimes feel as if the summer transfer window has become as much about the pursuit of dopamine as it has the value of astute recruitment.

From the first flurry of online speculation, right through to the virtual rubber stamp of a Fabrizio Romano “Here we go!”, every step of the process is increasingly geared towards building hype, generating engagement, and, to an extent, feeding the collective avarice of a global footballing community that has been convinced more is more and newer is better.

As far as Sunderland are concerned this year, however, the best business they have done might well be the comparatively boring stuff. While the need for reinforcements across several key areas of Regis Le Bris’ squad - from left-back to right wing - was plain to see, perhaps the greatest coup of the Black Cats’ summer has been the manner in which they have retained the core of a dressing room that served them so well last season.

The window began, of course, with a white-knuckled effort to prevent Granit Xhaka from leaving for Chelsea, but that fleeting panic aside, Sunderland have done a remarkable job of ensuring that their best and brightest will remain on Wearside for the time being.

Names like Robin Roefs and Noah Sadiki were broadly expected to garner interest from a whole host of heavy hitters, but in truth, the summer has passed without much in the way of genuine incident or peril. Indeed, in the case of Roefs, he has even put pen to paper on a new long-term deal, scheduled to keep him at the club until 2031. And he’s not the only one. Sunderland have also handed out extensions to the likes of Wilson Isidor and Romaine Mundle in recent weeks, maintaining their strength in depth and quashing the likelihood of losing valuable assets on the cheap further down the line.

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Of the players who have left the Stadium of Light, it was only really Eliezer Mayenda, Dennis Cirkin, Lutsharel Geertruida, and Bertrand Traore who made any kind of meaningful first team contribution last term - and none of that quartet, you could argue, were absolutely integral to the Black Cats’ success. At the end of the 2025/26 campaign, even after they had secured an improbable Europa League qualification, there was a gnawing fear that Sunderland could have their bones picked clean by the bigger boys with their bigger budgets. But that simply hasn’t happened.

And so, for all of the frustrations and gripes that have bubbled to the surface over the course of a summer window that has felt glacially sluggish at times, it is important to also recognise where the club has exceeded expectations. Xhaka, Roefs, and Sadiki are still Sunderland players. So are Omar Alderete, Enzo Le Fée, and Brian Brobbey; Wilson Isidor, Habib Diarra, and Trai Hume too.

The Black Cats have, in other words, kept together the overwhelming majority of a group who, against all odds, finished seventh in the Premier League just a few short months ago. And that, when the dust settles, has got to be worth something.

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