Sunderland’s saviours

Sunderland’s survival was confirmed with a game to spare following their 3-0 win over Everton at the Stadium of Light on Wednesday.

That hadn’t seemed likely in November when the Black Cats had capitulated 6-2 against the same opposition to leave them with six points from the first 11 games.

But Sam Allardyce used the transfer window to great effect with the signings of Lamine Kone, Wahbi Khazri and Jan Kirchhoff proving pivotal.

“I think the contribution of the players we got in January was really big for this team to come out of trouble,” Allardyce told Sky Sports after the game. Here’s why…

Lamine Kone

Kone was the goalscoring hero on the night with two of Sunderland’s three goals and the first of which was a strike that Jermain Defoe would have been proud of – the 27-year-old Ivorian blasting the ball beyond Joel Robles to settle the nerves at the Stadium of Light.

But it’s defensively that Kone has had the biggest impact. Sunderland have lost only 21 per cent of the games that the centre-back has played this season compared to 64 per cent without him – and the key to that has been the team’s …

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