DELETECITY

Your club · Sunderland

Four 1–0 wins over City. Every one comes off.

Sunderland took 15 points off City in 16 league games. Take City out and every point goes: they fall below their real finish in three seasons, and in 2012/13 stay up only on goal difference.

At a glance

Premier League seasons
8 of 9 · 2009/10 to 2016/17
Points taken off City
15 in 16 league games
Transfers with City
City paid Sunderland £0; Sunderland paid City £10.0m in reported fees for 1 player, plus 1 deal undisclosed.

Season by season: real → without City

  1. 2009/10Real: 13th, without City: 12th
  2. 2010/11Real: 10th, without City: 13th
  3. 2011/12Real: 13th, without City: 14th
  4. 2012/13Real: 17th, without City: 16th
  5. 2013/14Real: 14th, without City: 16th
  6. 2014/15Real: 16th, without City: 15th
  7. 2015/16Real: 17th, without City: 16th
  8. 2016/17Real: 20th, without City: 19th

The nine seasons

Sunderland spent eight of the nine seasons in the Premier League, 2009/10 to 2016/17, and the last outside it. They played City 16 times and won four. All four were at home. All four finished 1–0. And they came in four straight seasons: Darren Bent’s stoppage-time penalty in August 2010, Ji Dong-won’s last kick on New Year’s Day 2012, a Boxing Day winner in 2012, and another 1–0 in November 2013.

Add three draws and Sunderland took 15 points off City. Take City out and all 15 come off.

That is the cost of beating City. Sunderland never climb beyond City’s place. In three seasons they finish lower than they really did: 13th, not 10th, in 2010/11; 14th, not 13th, in 2011/12; 16th, not 14th, in 2013/14, two points clear of the drop and the last club safe. In the other five they move up one, and that place is City’s.

The fate never changes. Sunderland stay up in every season they really stayed up, and in 2016/17 they go down either way.

2011/12

Four points, the most of anyone

On New Year’s Day Ji rounded Joe Hart and scored with the last kick of the game. In March Sunderland drew 3–3 at the Etihad. Four points, more than any other club took off City that season. Both go: 41 points, 14th instead of 13th, the only club to fall.

That season Manchester United won 1–0 at Sunderland, and Sergio Agüero’s winner against QPR arrived 15 seconds after the final whistle there.

2012/13

Safe on goal difference

The Boxing Day win comes off, and 39 points become 36. For real Sunderland finished 17th, three points above Wigan. Without City, Wigan, beaten twice by City, keep all 36 of theirs and draw level. Goal difference settles it: Sunderland minus 11, Wigan minus 23. Sunderland are 16th and safe; Wigan go down either way.

2016/17

The last season

It began at the Etihad on 13 August, David Moyes’s first match in charge and Pep Guardiola’s first at City, lost 2–1 to an 87th-minute own goal. Beaten twice by City, Sunderland keep all 24 points, finish 19th of 19, and ten years in the top flight end either way.

The money

City paid Sunderland nothing in reported fees, so there is no City money to take out. The deals ran the other way.

Sunderland signed Adam Johnson from City in summer 2012 for an undisclosed fee, then Costel Pantilimon on a free and Jack Rodwell for a reported £10.0m in summer 2014: £10.0m in reported fees in all, plus one undisclosed. Four more came on loan: Benjani, Nedum Onuoha, Wayne Bridge and Jason Denayer. Loans are listed, never totalled.

Every season, club by club

Positions are real of 20 and rebuilt of 19; see How it works.