How the Championship's changing points total threshold could impact Sunderland

Transcript

00:00 going to now this season take a higher points total to be in the top six? You just look

00:04 at Leicester at the top and to be fair to them Ipswich as well, got a bit of a gap at

00:08 the bottom. You've got QPR struggling as well as Sheffield Wednesday, although they got

00:13 their first win over the weekend. Do you think it's going to take a higher points total than

00:16 it did last season?

00:17 Yeah, 100%. I mean, last year we all said at the time was, you know, an unusually low

00:23 number of points. If you look back to that final sort of two or three weeks before the

00:27 season ended, it was kind of incredible how teams like Millwall and Blackburn just persistently

00:33 failed to get the results. And so while Sunderland did brilliantly well, especially in that amazing

00:38 Preston performance, they were lucky. You know, they were. And that was one of the things

00:42 we talked about in pre-season was this, you know, we were concerned because we all said,

00:49 you know, Sunderland overachieved last year and they were fortunate to get in the top

00:52 six for the points however they did. And there was a chance that in a stronger division,

00:56 they kind of matched what they did last year, but finished lower down the table and it would

00:59 be viewed as a failure. So that was always something I think we were aware of coming

01:03 into the season. I think, and one of the things that Mo Bray has been talking about, and I

01:07 think one of the reasons he referenced that statistic you mentioned about Burnley, Joe,

01:11 was that Sunderland's performances are clearly better than they were last year. And they

01:14 are very clearly better than they were this time last year. You know, we talked about

01:17 Ahmad, it wasn't really until after the international break that you saw Sunderland really climb

01:21 the table and we began to talk about them as playoff contenders. Before then, it was

01:25 mostly that stabilizing level, wasn't it? So I think that was the point.