The next Henderson: Sunderland have found a new £30m+ star in the making

Sunderland fans will be dreaming about a Premier League return already, despite the new Championship season still being in its infancy, with Regis Le Bris’ Black Cats currently taking the second tier by storm.

Le Bris has been the breath of fresh air Sunderland needed in the dug-out clearly, after the disastrous chop-and-change approach with managers last season, with the ex-Lorient boss steering the Wearside outfit to a mightily impressive nine wins from 12 in league action.

If Sunderland were to finally break out of the second tier come the end of this long and drawn-out campaign, this would be the first time the Black Cats would be in the big time since the 2016/17 season, when they finished rock bottom of the pile.

Le Bris will be hopeful that his team can keep up this stellar form across the full run of fixtures, knowing that the Black Cats would have to sell some of their top assets if promotion wasn’t achieved, with top clubs no doubt sniffing around.

 

Sunderland were in a similar boat when parting ways with Jordan Henderson back in 2011, as the homegrown talent longed for bigger and better things at Liverpool, away from staying put at his hometown employers.

Henderson’s beginnings at the Stadium of Light are often forgotten about when you look back on his extensive career in England, with the one-time Sunderland youth prodigy going on to be a top performer for the Reds over many years.

Before he was thrust into the spotlight at Anfield, however, Henderson had to cut his teeth on Wearside to win himself a major move away, and he did just that when exploding into life in the men’s team after rising up the youth ranks.