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ELLAND ROAD — Bruno Fernandes is becoming a major problem. His form is alarming, the histrionics are becoming unbearable, while his body language deserves some of the consternation that has come his way in the past few weeks.

He hasn’t become a bad player overnight – the Manchester United skipper was light years ahead of any other Premier League player last term – but he nonetheless needs taking out the firing line, before he damages his legacy and ruins another season for his besieged side.

While wins remain elusive after a 1-1 draw at Leeds United – that is two victories from 10 in all competitions – there has been a marginal improvement in the last few games. Without Fernandes and his gesticulations stifling vigour and endeavour in the middle of the park.

Fernandes was deployed in a wide role again at Elland Road and was largely frustrating and ineffective – a game that was a microcosm of his season.

Further back, however, Carlos Baleba enjoyed an excellent first half, bringing some much-needed energy and running, Andrey Santos was not overawed by the febrile home following, while Youri Tielemans registered one assist and generally offered a cunning threat for much of the encounter.

The fact Fernandes stayed on all match is a concern, a sign that Michael Carrick has not got the gall to hook his beleaguered skipper, even at his lowest ebb.

Carrick does, however, deserve credit for addressing the problems in the middle of the park. Now it is time for the unthinkable in the coming weeks – everyone could benefit from a Fernandes breather.

“He’s all right, it’s not a big deal,” Carrick said of Fernandes. “He played a slightly different position in midweek, but apart from that, it’s pretty much as usual. And he’s an important part of our team. He has been for us for some time, and that’s not changing.

“There was a freshness to the group. You look at the midfield with Carlos and Andrey, that’s a pretty fresh spine of the team, through the middle of the pitch. And both young players adapting to life at this football club, and I thought both of them were terrific today. I thought they both did really well in midweek, so that’s a massive positive for us.”

The first half played out exactly as an under-pressure Carrick would have wanted. With United on the ropes, and Leeds without a home defeat in seven coming into the clash, the hosts’ fervent following smelled blood, a first victory at Elland Road over their rivals from across the Pennines in 24 years in the offing.

The atmosphere was feverish. Songs started out about Eric Cantona but quickly got worse. The visitors needed to avoid a repeat of their nightmare start in Madrid on Wednesday or things could have turned even nastier.

After stifling Leeds in the opening 20 minutes, led by Lisandro Martinez at the back, starting despite calling out the club’s hierarchy after the Atletico Madrid loss, United slowly started to play more expansively, deservedly taking the lead late in the 35th minute through Bryan Mbeumo, on the end of a fine Tielemans cross.

It was as well controlled a 45 minutes as United had put together all season. Baleba was a class above on the ball. Serenity does not last long with modern-day United, however, as six minutes into the second half, they crumbled once more.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin was left all alone to level, sparking pandemonium in the stands. A vulnerable United were looking a shadow of their first-half selves.

The game was there for the taking for either side, but the visitors faded as an attacking force, while Leeds suffered from a severe bout of profligacy.

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There was still time for one final Fernandes head-loss, as he screamed into the crisp West Yorkshire air after a stepover didn’t come off. Not his fault, of course.

The wide forward position is one of the few areas of the squad United are well stocked in, so shoehorning Fernandes into a position Marcus Rashford or Matheus Cunha can be deployed in is somewhat counterproductive.

Carrick remains under the utmost scrutiny. Wins are a must to at least see him through to Christmas. He does, however, seem to have cracked the midfield code. Fernandes should, for the time being, not be part of those plans.  

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In case of black and white emergency, break the glass and throw Dan Burn up front.

Six games in are we already in panic territory for Newcastle United? Even for those of us who’d argue for patience and calm heads as faith in the “2.0 project” begins to ebb, hurling Burn on as a battering ram for six injury-time minutes felt very much like a desperate move from Matthias Jaissle as the game drained away against Aston Villa.

Don’t get it twisted, Newcastle are desperate for a player of Burn’s character and desire right now. But if Jaissle really is the tactical auteur he was made out to be in the summer, surely he should be nowhere near the forward line of a team that is meant to be about front-foot, aggressive and attacking play.

Jaissle could argue that he had little to do with the recruitment that has seen Newcastle spend £179m on forwards to replace Alexander Isak and have so little to show for it.

Yoane Wissa, after a brief flicker at the start of this season, was dreadful in Saturday night’s 1-0 defeat to Villa. Nick Woltemade is struggling after being exiled to Italy on loan, while Matias Fernandez-Pardo (and I maintain there is something there, despite a difficult start) has been shifted to the wing already.

Will Osula – now anointed as Newcastle’s main striker – is returning from injury and a year ago was miles off it. It is seriously worrying that of the 14 goals the Magpies have scored this season, just one has come from a recognised striker (Wissa at Tottenham).

But the biggest criticism you could level at Jaissle right now is that his tactics and selections are actually diminishing the group rather than making it more than the sum of its parts.

Of course there should be worries about how little the new arrivals are impacting things. Sean Steur, Amar Dedic and Aladji Bamba didn’t get off the bench here while Bazoumana Toure got 34 minutes (replacing Fernandez-Pardo). All were heralded as “match ready” when signed in the summer.

But what chance do Newcastle have if Jaissle refuses to shift from his principles and continues to pursue a system which has produced football chaos and a team that look wide open and far too easy to play through?

Belatedly he did change it up against Villa, going to what looked like a 4-4-2 as Newcastle chased the game at St James’ Park. But it looked ill-thought out and a bit of a desperate swing from a manager who has to spend the next week trying out something different from the fraying “vertical football” philosophy that has now delivered three defeats from four games.

If the second half turned the focus on how powder puff they are going forward, the first half was a thudding reminder of just how defensively porous they are.

Twice they had been cut through by Villa before Johan Manzambi was granted the freedom of St James’ Park to nod past the unconvincing Lukas Hornicek.

Manzambi, of course, was a priority target for Newcastle in the summer but chose Villa. You could see here why they coveted him so much. The Magpies could really do with someone of his attacking intent.

You wonder where things go next. There has been supreme confidence at St James’ Park that things will go to plan and the faith in Jaissle has been absolute. The noises in the summer were that it wouldn’t matter that he was coming in so late, such was his talent and the strength of the recruitment.

But that confidence has collided with cold, hard Premier League reality. Whatever the merits of the “2.0 project” – and there is little doubt Newcastle had to pivot to something different given the challenges they face – they also need to find a way to win football matches.

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A big part of that now comes down to Jaissle. He can persevere with what he’s doing, gamble that his ideas are the right way and cash in if things get better. Or he can become a pragmatist, tweak things to make Newcastle more difficult to beat and try and grind his way through this patch of trouble. The first route is risky – just ask Ruben Amorim.

It is early days. But what he does next will tell us a lot about what Jaissle is made of.

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Everton are unlikely to have new owners any time soon – but fans rightly upset with the Friedkin Group got a reminder of just how much worse things could have been for them this week.

The Friedkins recently announced they were exploring investment options and a potential sale of the club after a transfer window which left David Moyes with a threadbare squad.

It is understood the American investment firm are not currently in meaningful talks with any interested parties, and they have said they will wait for the “the right stewards to take the club forward” before agreeing a sale.

Everton chairman Dan Friedkin, based in Texas, has invited criticism for being an absentee owner as he has never attended a match, never spoken to Moyes, and handles club business on video calls.

But long-suffering Toffees got a reminder of what might have been on Thursday night when Josh Wander of 777 Partners, who tried to buy the club in 2023, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in a New York court.

Wander ‘stole hundreds of millions’

Once a flamboyant playboy pictured partying with the stars in Miami, the 45-year-old is now likely facing significant jail time. The wire fraud and securities fraud charges he pleaded guilty to as part of a plea bargain carry maximum sentences of 20 years each.

Wander was indicted in the US for orchestrating a scheme to defraud lenders and investors out of $500m (£375m), with some of that money then improperly used to invest in sports teams in which 777 Partners held stakes.

As well as Everton, who borrowed around £200m from 777 while the Miami investment firm waited in vain for Premier League approval to take over the club, there was Standard Liege, Genoa, Hertha Berlin, Red Star Paris, Sevilla, Vasco da Gama, Melbourne Victory, and the British Basketball League’s London Lions.

US AItorney Jamie McDonald said in a statement: “As he has now admitted, Josh Wander used his company, 777 Partners, to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from private creditors and investors.

“Wander double-pledged assets, pledged fictitious assets, lied about the financial condition of his company, and even falsified bank statements, all to gain access to his victims’ funds. He then put those funds to uses that his lenders never permitted, including footing the bill for 777’s collection of professional soccer teams.”

In August of this year, 777 Partners filed for bankruptcy with over 1,500 creditors and debts of over $2bn.

Now it is Wander who must pay. As part of his plea, he agreed to forfeit “at least $500m in proceeds from his illegal scheme”.

Initially, he had pleaded not guilty to all the charges brought against him, which included two of conspiracy and one of witness tampering. Earlier this year, he petitioned US President Donald Trump for a pre-emptive pardon.

But he was unsuccessful and will now be sentenced in March of next year. It will be his second charge after he pleaded no contest following his arrest on cocaine charges as a 21-year-old.

Had this latest case gone to trial, prosecutors had already informed the judge they would seek to introduce evidence that Wander used “recreational drugs, including cocaine” during the period in which the fraud took place.

Friedkins remain distant

It is difficult to see all of this as anything but a huge bullet dodged by Everton. When the Friedkins came on the scene, they rescued the club from the mess left behind by 777’s aborted purchase, transformed the balance sheet by settling debts, completing the new stadium, and attracting new investment.

But revenues have not grown as quickly as they hoped, virtually no progress has been made with the local authorities on infrastructure development around the ground, and the cost of competing in the Premier League has proved to be bigger than expected.

The Friedkins paid around £300m to purchase the club, and alongside minority investors their total investment has risen substantially since.

They hope to make a quick buck by flipping the club less than two years after they acquired it, and have committed to continue funding it in the meantime – including by backing Moyes with a January spend.

Read more

• Friedkins: Two groups interested in Everton – what it means for Moyes and transfers
• Everton: 19 I was an Everton wonderkid – then I lost two decades to cocaine

But while their lack of genuine enthusiasm, minimal communication and transfer market mistakes have rightly attracted the ire of Everton fans who haven’t seen their team win a trophy since 1995, things could have been so much worse.

Kieran Maguire, Professor of Football Finance at Liverpool University, told The i Paper: “There was a real danger that 777 would have used Everton as part of their global plate-spinning operation in terms of transferring debt from one company to another, and the fear is that the plate that could have fallen could have been Everton.”

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If you simulated Jadon Sancho’s career a hundred times over, this is probably the worst possible outcome.

At 26 years of age, the winger finds himself without a club. The summer transfer window came and went without him signing a contract anywhere following his release from Manchester United. If you went to a bookies in 2021 upon his arrival at Old Trafford and asked for odds on this happening, they’d have laughed you out of the place without even wanting to take your money.

It’s a ridiculous situation Sancho finds himself in. He took the noble step of joining Borussia Dortmund as a 17-year-old having rejected a lucrative contract from Manchester City, showing a desire to improve and work on his game ahead of simply grabbing the cash. It was at Dortmund, football’s most-trusted talent factory, that he became the brightest young star in the sport.

A move back to England and a Premier League debut felt inevitable. United first chased him in 2019 as part of their British recruitment drive, which also included Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Dan James. By the time United had successfully landed Sancho in 2021, he was seen as a player who would be too good to fail. It was seemingly a riskless transfer.

But Sancho found out the hard way that modern-day United is a different beast to Fergie-era United, and that is meant in the most derogatory sense. The second-place finish Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side had earned in the 2020-21 season papered over the cracks of a club about to split open like a sieve.

United panic-signed Cristiano Ronaldo at the end of that same window, throwing whatever plan they had worked on in the two years prior out the window. Solskjaer, unable to solve an impossible puzzle, was sacked in November 2021 and curiously replaced by Ralf Rangnick. That was only the first three months of Sancho’s new life.

For each season he was at United, there was always some sort of crisis to contend with. Sancho was still only 21 when he signed, remember. The formative years of his young adulthood were far from kind.

This isn’t to say Sancho is blameless in all this – his public swipe back at Erik ten Hag in September 2023 effectively ended his United tenure at its halfway point, most notably – but he has been the product of his environment. To varying extents, we’re all guilty of that.

It’s precisely why Sancho deserves a fair crack at a fresh start and Getafe could be an ideal landing spot. The Spanish side have confirmed they are locked in talks over a deal, following their acquisition of ex-Real Madrid captain and fellow free agent Dani Carvajal earlier in the week.

Getafe, based just outside Madrid, are a consolidated La Liga outfit and among the favourites to win this season’s Conference League, though don’t boast a particularly massive profile, averaging crowds of little over 10,000.

The naturally slower pace of the game should suit Sancho better than the Premier League, where his surprising lack of speed became an insurmountable weakness.

Read more

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It should be noted the best football Sancho has played since he returned to England was during his six-month loan spell back to Dortmund in 2024, helping them reach the Champions League final and shining in a number of European appearances.

As the 2020s have exposed more than ever, sometimes quality players simply aren’t suited to the rough-and-tumble of the Premier League, and that became even clearer after unimpressive loans to Chelsea and Aston Villa.

There’s been a developing narrative that Sancho could rebuild his career at Getafe post-United in similar vein to Mason Greenwood. Take aside the frankly insulting comparison of circumstances and there’s a fairer case to consider.

Sancho has spent the last half-decade trying to live up to an idyllic tag in imperfect circumstances. It’s not too late for him to salvage his career at the top level.

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My Sporting Life is The i Paper’s look behind the curtain at what drives sports stars to greatness. This week, former Everton, Newcastle United and Dundee United striker Duncan Ferguson reflects on a distinguished playing career and his 44-day prison stint for on-field assault.

If I felt threatened, I lashed out

I was never the best player at school because I was so tall and skinny. I just couldn’t run the way the other lads did but all of a sudden I stopped growing, filled out and kicked on. Then I thought “I’ve got a proper chance now”.

I was never in trouble as a kid. I was the lad who brought the ball to school, I was a Boys’ Brigade boy, I loved my athletics. It was uneventful until I made a breakthrough as a footballer at 17 or 18, then people started to recognise me and I became a target. I was a face and that was where my troubles started.

I was going out, going to discos, in taxi ranks, kebab shops, doing what young lads do and I found it difficult to walk away when people confronted me. If people are in your face and you feel threatened, I would lash out. That was the way I was taught. “Make sure you throw the first punch.” It got me in a bit of trouble as the years went on.

Prison was horrific

I was 22 when I got sent to prison. My past had caught up with me and I was on probation for previous offences. It was my last chance. I never thought I’d get put in prison for something I did on the football field.

It’s a wake-up call, to put it mildly. I was a bit fearless when I was younger. It sounds strange but I was actually quite excited about going to prison, it was something a bit different. That soon gets knocked out of you.

The first night was horrific. I was in D Hall in Barlinnie, which was notorious. The lights went out, the doors shut and people started shouting at me. That’s when it really came home that it wasn’t going to be easy. There were threats on my life – people were going to stab me, slash my throat, do me in when I came out of my door in the morning.

It was a sleepless night and then I had to step forward in the morning through my door onto the landing. That was a big moment. It eased off a bit after that but you’re never truly comfortable in prison. There were no toilets in prison so the smell of all the lads slopping out in the morning or after a weekend was absolutely horrendous. That has stayed with me. Remember I was a Premier League footballer at the time!

I’m a totally different person now. I’d never put myself in those sort of positions. And I don’t drink.

I fell in love with Everton in that cell

My love affair with Everton started when I was in that jail cell. The loyalty the club and fans showed me in prison was incredible. I got 10,000 letters: boxes and boxes piled up in the prison, telling me what an injustice it was, how they were going to support me when I came out of jail.

I invested in the club, I loved the people and the city and it wasn’t just words to me. Of course it’s the goals and the way you play, but it’s also how you are as a person.

I sign every autograph and say yes to every picture request and they remember it. I wouldn’t walk by anyone. I was asked to visit people at their house or in hospital and they remember it forever. I think I’ve probably bought most of the Everton fanbase a drink over the years as well, so that helps!

Newcastle United was a missed opportunity but I loved it

I don’t want to sound cocky but football was quite easy for me. It was injuries that were my issue – they mounted up. By the time I went to Newcastle I was just managing constant injuries. I had bits of my calf cut out, I had scars everywhere.

When I was fit for three or four months I was unstoppable and the team were flying, which is why I think I get looked on with a bit of fondness up there. We lost the 1999 FA Cup final and I had to come off at half-time, which was a huge regret.

I loved Alan Shearer, he was one of the best I ever played with. Great player, great mentality. We didn’t speak for three months because he was injured but our wives connected in the stands – they got to know each other before we did! Meanwhile we were like two bulls in a field.

Ruud Gullit signed me for Newcastle and I was a bit starstruck. I actually played against him at Euro ’92 and he was the best player I ever saw live. What a presence he was. He looked the part and as a young player I thought “Wow, this is the level”.

He’d tried to sign me at Chelsea, he really rated me as a player and spent £8m on me so I thank him for that. I thought he was a brilliant manager, such a good coach but maybe as a man manager he just needed a bit of work because he was young and still probably thought he was a player. He fell out with Alan and I think he thought he was finished as a player, which was a big mistake. Ruud was a bit jealous of him when he should have put his arm round him.

Walter Smith was the greatest football man I ever met

Walter discovered me at Dundee, he moved to Rangers and broke the British record in the process. He then became my Everton manager and I was his captain.

No one would say a bad word about him. He was a legend and he was loved. Walter was a man of few words but he didn’t have to say a lot. It was just a nod, a handshake, an “Alright Dunc?” He was a diamond.

Managerial aspirations still burn

I still want to be a manager. I’ve fallen into punditry but the fire is still there and I think I have a lot to offer. I’ve been really unlucky. I lost my job at Inverness Caledonian Thistle because the club went into administration, not through results.

Hopefully I get in a bit sooner than later. (On links to Glentoran) I’m interested in all work, if anyone comes to me with work I’m happy to sit down and talk to them. I’ve talked to numerous clubs over the years and it’s never quite materialised but if you’re out of work and someone offers you work, you’re going to listen.

Read more

Explained: Two groups interested in Everton takeover – what it means for Moyes and transfers

Interview: At 19 I was an Everton wonderkid – then I lost two decades to cocaine

Neville is a brilliant businessman

I love teaming up with Gary Neville. I went on The Overlap to promote my book so to get the chance to be part of the daily shows is a great opportunity. I jumped at it. I spent the summer with Gary at the World Cup and he’s a force of nature.

It’s been great getting to know him. He was a great player and he’s now this brilliant businessman too.

Overlap Daily airs weekdays at 4pm. Catch Duncan Ferguson alongside Mark Crossley every Thursday with episodes available on YouTube, Global Player and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Some post-rant diplomacy on Instagram cannot soften the impact of the radioactive words spoken. Lisandro Martinez’s atom bomb after the Champions League defeat to Atletico shredded any semblance of unity and coherence at Manchester United.

Old Trafford is almost three years into the minority ownership of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, which was supposed to change the world. It is 13 years since the last of United’s 20 league titles, and 21 since the Glazer family completed their leveraged takeover, seeding the debt-driven decline of the post-Ferguson era.

There are a multiplicity of factors contributing to United’s decline, exacerbated by the rise of irrational spending by state-owned Manchester City and the now-departed oligarchy at Chelsea.

As Martinez pointed out, responsibility for the mess starts at the top, filtering down by degrees from the owners, through the impoverished executive class and into the dressing room, where managers and players have one way or another made their own contributions. The critique cannot be unsaid, nor unheard.

Joel Glazer

In an increasingly desperate attempt to keep pace, United have repeated critical errors by a leadership lacking industry expertise. The rot started with Ed Woodward, who succeeded David Gill as executive vice chairman in 2013.

United have since been in the hands of financiers, specialists in debt management, policy makers who used the underlying value of the club to fund borrowing. The Glazers put down barely a third of the £800m purchase price in 2005. The rest came from loans paid not by them but by club profits.

A £500m debt has more than doubled since, with Ratcliffe even less concerned about debt levels than the majority owners.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe

Sir Jim’s big “sell” was local boy made good. He arrived as Britain’s richest man, the head of a chemicals and energy conglomerate. He said he was a United fan, though he left Failsworth aged 10 for Hull.

He promised a best-in-class revamp, putting football first. What he has delivered is the same finance-first approach, cutting costs and jobs, maximising ticket prices, and hiring quasi-industry experts from new brand leaders Manchester City to cover his tracks.

Jason Wilcox

Former City chief executive Omar Berrada was the key hire, followed by Jason Wilcox as director of football. Berrada was part of a City leadership subsequently found guilty of financial misconduct, which they deny. Wilcox was appointed from Southampton based on a decade building the City academy, which was also funded by denied malfeasance.

Together Ratcliffe, Berrada and Wilcox have repeated the pattern of misjudged managerial and player signings of earlier regimes, continuing last summer with the failure to address key positions in defence.

Erik ten Hag

The appointment of Erik ten Hag predated Ineos. His retention on the basis of an anomalous FA Cup victory over City was, however, all their own work.

Though Ten Hag finished third in year one, the collapse to eighth in season two exposed his flaws, a fall substantially accelerated by transfer activity that involved his agent brother, Kees Vos.

The success of Casemiro and Martinez was utterly outweighed by the colossal fails of Andre Onana, Manuel Ugarte, Joshua Zirkzee, Tyrell Malacia and to a lesser extent Mason Mount and Rasmus Hojlund.

The leadership allowed the win over City to cloud their judgment. Ten Hag should have gone in May 2024. When reality finally caught up with them five months later it cost United £10m to sack him.

Ruben Amorim

Enter three-at-the-back dogma. Patrick Dorgu aside, Amorim’s issue was not the players he bought, which included Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbuemo and Benjamin Sesko, but his unyielding commitment to a system that was clearly beyond the understanding of his team.

Amorim was Berrada’s big move, a young coach adept at bringing young players through at Sporting CP. What Amorim did not have was experience at a marquee institution. He naively believed he could impose an alien system unproven in the context of big-club dynamics in the Premier League.

He died on that hill, United finally ending a 14-month psychodrama in January of this year.

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Michael Carrick

Carrick is wrong as a consequence of the same failed thinking. Berrada and Wilcox ignored again a lack of experience. They took no account of Carrick’s only prior post at Middlesborough, from which he was sacked after 30 months.

They took no account of the unique circumstances of Carrick’s caretaker bounce-back, a period in which he proceeded free of the scrutiny that comes when your name is on the door. They saw significance in the connection of a former player, fell for the fantasy of United DNA.

Carrick has overseen the worst start to a season for more than a decade. Martinez was kind not to point the finger in his direction. But that does not absolve him. Thus does he take his place in the stocks alongside those who have broken United.

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They will talk about this trip for years on Wearside.

The vibes in sun-bathed Leiria had been immaculate all day from Sunderland fans drinking in their first European away day for 53 years. In the picturesque Rodrigues Lobo Square, the Black Cats staged a full-scale takeover, families and friends embracing and swaying in the Portuguese heat as they revelled in the surreal spectacle of their team playing competitive football on the continent for the first time in a generation.

Thank goodness then that a game that threatened to cast a shadow on the revelry eventually blossomed into an “I-was-there” moment. After 93 minutes of toil, Noah Sadiki’s brilliant late blast was the spark for an explosion of joy from Sunderland’s impressive travelling support. It was a collector’s item worthy of the occasion.

With two wins from two it gives the Black Cats a perfect start to life in the Europa League. But Regis Le Bris will have known this was a flawed display that only spluttered into life when he summoned the cavalry in the second half. His much-changed starting XI only served to highlight the paucity of options he has in this marathon month.

Sadiki was a starter and one of the few of those picked from the outset who enhanced his reputation. Timur Tutyerov, the young Ukrainian forward, was certainly game but there were too many who seemed to think that second tier Portuguese opposition did not require them to get out of second gear.

It ruined the buzz for the thousands of fans who packed one side of the Estadio Dr Magalhaes Pessoa, the venue picked by Uefa on account of Torreense’s stadium being no bigger than your average National League North ground back home. They had all had to make an effort to be here – expensive planes, trains and automobiles from places like Lisbon, Porto and Faro – but it had the feel of a giant anti-climax during an attritional first half.

It was hard to blame Torreense. If Sunderland’s route back into Europe five years after struggling in League One felt like a fairytale, their Portuguese Cup win was Leicester 5,000-1 stuff. They really had no right to be here so packing eight men behind the ball was a justified tactic, helped by hopeless whistle-happy Albanian referee Enea Jorgji.

Sunderland’s lack of guile in breaking them down was the problem. Young Tutyerov’s disallowed goal aside, they created next to nothing before the thunderbolt from Volnei Feltes that opened the scoring.

It was some goal, smashed from 30 yards over a helpless Robin Roefs. To highlight how freakish it was, Torreense hadn’t actually had a touch in Sunderland’s area before it arrived. Their xG before then was a princely 0.02.

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Le Bris’ side had plenty of the ball but did little with it. Malick Fofana, the £30m signing supposed to highlight Sunderland’s arrival at this level, was especially ineffective as he continued his auspicious introduction to life in England. He is missing conviction.

So were Sunderland until Granit Xhaka, Enzo Le Fee and Nordi Mukiele were brought on. All three made the impact that you suspected they would, adding the energy and enterprise that had been sadly lacking before then.

It helped that Torreense were tiring and the equaliser brought sweet relief. Mukiele stood a brilliant ball up for Jules Ahoka to head past Lucas Paes and Sunderland’s pressure was relentless. A penalty overturned by VAR and a disallowed goal threatened to ruin the party before Sadiki slammed home to quench the thirst of the away fans for a win to top off a historic few days.

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