Sunderland win continues strong start for promoted trio

Six games into the season and Sunderland are flying high in the Premier League.

After eight years away, the Black Cats are enjoying being back in the big time, with victory at Nottingham Forest lifting them into the Champions League places.

Few would expect them still to be there come May, but with three wins under their belt already, Regis le Bris' side have every reason to be optimistic.

"We know to be competitive in this league we have to work together, to suffer together," Le Bris told Sky Sports after the 1-0 win at the City Ground.

"I am really proud for that because we defended really well and our five subs helped a lot. With the ball I think there is still room for improvement."

Room for improvement - but already a showing to suggest there won't be a repeat of the past two Premier League seasons, when all three promoted teams have gone straight back down.

Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland have taken a combined 23 points from their opening six games, making it the best start to a Premier League season by the promoted sides since 2017-18.

In fact, only five times in Premier League history have the promoted sides made a better start to a season.

Such a strong start bodes well for their chances of survival as in every campaign where the promoted sides have started so strongly, at least two of the three have stayed up at the end of the season.

"There is a really long way to go - we are just a few games in but we have to celebrate every good moment and move on to the next one," Sunderland goalkeeper Robin Roefs told Sky Sports.

Sunderland have made the best start of the three, accruing 11 points from their opening six games, which is the most any promoted side has taken in 13 years, since West Ham did the same in 2012-13.

Only two promoted sides have ever made a better start to a Premier League season and both of those were in the early years of the competition when the gap between the established and promoted sides was arguably not as significant.

A weird quirk is that of the seven teams to record 11-plus points in the first six games, six of them - including Sunderland - were play-off winners.

While every side that has started a Premier League season with as many points as Sunderland has survived.

A word of warning for Black Cats fans, however, as Hull did only manage to guarantee survival on the final day in 2008-09, staying up with just 35 points.

So why have this season's trio started so much better than Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton 12 months ago?

Because they've been much more successful at keeping Premier League opposition at bay, conceding eight fewer goals and giving up 32 fewer chances between them.

While this season's promoted sides haven't actually created much more than last season's trio, they've been more clinical so far, scoring three more goals despite taking just nine more shots and generating a similar quality of chances in terms of expected goals.