Black Cats are back in the big league, but will Watson regret move?

SUNDERLAND are back in the Premier League and not many fans who watched the five defeats at the end of the regular Championship season would have predicted that.

- By CLIVE YOULTON

Sheffield United will be scratching their heads. Coventry already were. But Sunderland’s never-know-when-you're-beaten mantra has seen them make it to the big league for the first time in eight years.

Regis Le Bris will be quite rightly lauded and deserves massive credit. He will be forever considered a god on Wearside.

A top-quality human being has been proved to be a wonderful coach and tactician, too.

Utilising the squad to make sure players were up to match feet did the trick. I said at the start of the season that a certain other Frenchman - Arsene Wenger - had not been heard of when he arrived in England. Le Bris was another. But everybody knows him now.

The play-off final against Sheffield United was a match and a situation littered with ironies.

The biggest of all was Tommy Watson - vilified by Black Cats fans in a similar way to Trent Alexander-Arnold at Liverpool - scoring the winner.

What must have been going through his mind after producing the moment that earned his home-town club £220m and a Premier League place when he is leaving?