Sunderland
Today's Talking Points
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1Sunderland are into their second season back in the Premier League and have started like a team that's decided top-flight football isn't going to scare them — a 1-0 win over Fulham and a battling 1-1 draw at Brentford where they arguably had the better chances and rattled the post.
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2Striker Wilson Isidor scored the winner against Fulham just days after signing a new contract with the club — good timing, and exactly the kind of moment that makes a new deal look smart within a week.
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3Last season Sunderland provided one of the division's most dramatic subplots without really meaning to: a 1-0 win over Tottenham in April ended with Spurs captain Cristian Romero in tears and out for the rest of the season with knee ligament damage.
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4It's the sort of result that gets brought up by other clubs' fans more than Sunderland's own — a reminder that a newly promoted side can do real damage to a club with much bigger ambitions.
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5Two seasons ago that Romero afternoon would've been the story of Sunderland's season; now it barely comes up in their own build-up, which says a lot about how quickly they've settled into staying up rather than just scraping by.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Sunderland fans don't bring up the Romero game much themselves — they don't need to, everyone else does it for them.
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Avoid saying
"Sunderland are just happy to be here" — a newly-promoted-club line that stopped being true the day they put a Tottenham captain's season to bed.
