Roker Report
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Fan Letters: Sunderland Must Get Out Of The Blocks – Or This Could Turn Disasterous
Dear Roker Report, Right at the death yet again, and, as should have been scripted, by a former player. Taking away the regrettable celebrations from Clarke that irked us fans who once adored him, there was definitely something lacking in our play. To me, we seemed half a yard off the ball, and although I […]
Pause The Meltdown – We Aren’t in Bad Company
Well, that was a bit of a damp squib of a “match one”, wasn’t it? It was always going to be a bit “meh” for me, to be honest – I erroneously made arrangements to have lunch with some old friends on Saturday (family pals, not footy mates), which I was really looking forward to […]
Haway The Podcast | GREALISH + PAIXAO | Two Huge Names Linked To Sunderland!
Just when you thought that Sunderland’s transfer window wasn’t picking up pace, along come two barmy transfer rumours in one day – so, join us as Gav, James and Andrew chat all about it! On today’s show: All this and more! Get subscribed to Haway The Podcast so you never miss another episode of our […]
Sunderland’s Europa League Adventure Is Almost Here – Bring It On
With only a matter of days to go before the draw for the league stage of the Europa League takes place, it still hasn’t sunk in that Sunderland will be competing across the continent against some of Europe’s biggest clubs this season. Like us all, I have had the date of the draw in my […]
Jack Grealish to Sunderland? Why the Move Could Actually Make Sense
On the 22nd of July 2025, David Ornstein tweeted, “Granit Xhaka informs Bayer Leverkusen he only wants to join Sunderland,” and across Wearside, a collective “Really? Us?” was said. At that time, we didn’t quite know the extent of the club’s ambitions for the Premier League, and we certainly couldn’t have predicted the success our first campaign […]
Talking Tactics: What Went Wrong for Sunderland at Ipswich?
Sunderland kicked off their 26/27 campaign with a long trip down to Premier League newcomers Ipswich Town, having not visited Portman Road since January 2024, given both sides have swapped leagues simultaneously since then. With a raucous opening-day atmosphere, Sunderland were going to need to weather the early storm, but ultimately lost control and fell […]
Sunderland’s European Adventure Is Finally About to Become Reality
Sunderland find out their Europa League opponents this week. This is a sentence most of us would never have thought could be a reality after finishing 16th in the Championship just over two years ago. On Friday, in a studio in Monaco, representatives from Sunderland will be watching on as the fixtures for the competition […]
On This Day (27 Aug 1994): Gray Day For Sunderland At Stoke – And Club Set To Be Sold
Bob Murray’s ownership of Sunderland is a difficult one to truly understand – there were so many things going on at so many different times behind the scenes that you feel like he spent much of the first half of his tenure simply suriving. His own version – outlined in his autobiography – is one of long-term […]
Igor Paixão: Is He the Solution to Sunderland’s Attack?
It’s that time of the season now – the final week before “Jim White Day”, or as it’s more commonly referred to… Transfer Deadline Day. As expected, rumours and links to players come thick and fast during this period, and one interesting one has turned its head. Enter Igor Paixão. The Brazilian winger has been […]
Haway The Podcast | The Sunder Years | 1999
We’ve got the start of a new series for you today – The Sunder Years! The concept is simple. We pick a year, and choose one game, one player and one anniversary that happened in those 12 months – and have the crack about them! On today’s show, Martin, Kelvin and Andrew cover: • A big […]
After 27 Years, A Dream Trip To The Stadium Of Light Is Days Away
Even though I started playing the sport when I was seven, I never had a favourite professional football team growing up in the United States. The NASL, which had once boasted Pelé and Beckenbauer, collapsed in 1984 when I was 10, and Major League Soccer didn’t start until 1996. Outside of going to a few […]
Not Every Sunderland Loss Demands A Social Media-Led Postmortem
BlueSky was branded as the ‘woke’ answer to X (formerly Twitter) and was what X users would have you believe was for the left-leaning, ‘libtard’ snowflakes who couldn’t handle the perennially fatalist churn of the X feed. Can’t deal with the endless string of bots and AI slop dressed up as far-right propaganda? Here, have […]
Sunderland’s Transfer Window Countdown: In Ghisolfi We Trust
Mark Ryan says… I’m quite confident as we close in on the end of the window. Florent Ghisolfi and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus have something up their sleeve — I can sense it. The changes to the squad were always going to be at the edges, not the core, and the priority was always improving the quality […]
A Tough Opening Day, But Sunderland Stalwart Luke O’Nien Is No Liability
I’m annoyed. Not solely at Saturday’s loss to Ipswich and the somewhat slapdash manner of the defeat (although that certainly raised my blood pressure and left me with a sense of “For God’s sake, what a missed opportunity that was”) but instead, it was a combination of mistakes made at the heart of the Sunderland […]
On This Day (26th Aug 1972): Lathan’s Brace Earns Sunderland Point at Brighton
It was Boss Alan Brown’s birthday, and his team presented him with a very good 45 minutes at the Goldstone Ground, as well as a fine brace from young forward John Lathan. Sunderland had finished the previous season in fifth position in the second tier, showing in the second half of that campaign that there […]
Haway The Podcast |Q&A | Ipswich Debrief | Transfers | Hume Role | And More!
There’s always plenty to talk about after a defeat and with the transfer window about to SLAM SHUT™ there’s even more than usual. Martin, Andrew and Ant field your questions including: All this and more! Get subscribed to Haway The Podcast so you never miss another episode of our free daily show. Ready to have […]
Reader’s Corner: What Did Sunderland Learn From Their Defeat to Ipswich?
Fancy writing something for the Roker Report website? Get your thoughts down and send them to us in an email – [email protected] – and we’ll publish them as part of Reader’s Corner! Losing is never a good feeling. I know that all too well. So, rather than simply venting after today’s defeat, I want to […]
View From The Away End: A Typical Sunderland Start To The Season At Ipswich
On a bright and pleasant Saturday morning, it felt good to have competitive football back on the agenda. It’s been a typical off-season since the World Cup ended, characterised by the usual paroxysms online over the lack of signings, debates over the relevance of pre-season friendlies and, recently, a bizarre edition of Top Trumps over […]
Sunderland’s Transfer Window Countdown: A Busy Final Few Days In Prospect?
Ben McKevitt says… A ‘knife edge’ might be pushing it, but it’s goes without saying that the final week of the transfer window is massively important for the rest of the season and beyond. When everyone is fit, our starting eleven is strong but depth is still a clear issue and was exposed on Saturday, […]
On This Day (25th Aug 2018): Sunderland Fight Back To Beat AFC Wimbledon
On this day in 2018, Sunderland secured a hard-fought away victory at AFC Wimbledon. Following relegation to the third tier for only the second time in their history, this was game week five of the League One season. Sunderland had started the campaign brightly, and this victory ensured we maintained our unbeaten start to the […]
Jules Ahoka: Who Is Sunderland’s £10m Midfield Prospect?
Reports came flying in on Friday linking Sunderland to the reported £10 million signing of twenty-year-old DR Congo youth international Jules Ahoka from Royal Antwerp – they were even blessed with a “Here We Go” by everyone’s favourite transfer spoiler, Fabrizio Romano. So who is he, what would he offer Sunderland and why are we […]
Haway The Podcast | JULES AHOKA | Sunderland’s €10m Signing – How Good Is He?
Sunderland are set to sign DR Congo U20 international midfielder Jules Ahoka from Royal Antwerp for €10m – but is he any good? We don’t know, so our good friend Elijah Michiels – a Belgian football scout – joins us to give us the lowdown on a man we know so little about! All this […]
Why Sunderland Fans Shouldn’t Panic After Ipswich Defeat
Now that the dust is starting to settle on Saturday’s opening-day defeat to Ipswich down at Portman Road, let’s take a look at what went wrong and why there’s no need to panic. We’ve not lost many games under Régis Le Bris, so the feeling after a defeat isn’t something we’re used to. This is […]
Why Sunderland Is the Perfect Premier League Club for Americans
While the two series share much DNA, two major differences separate Sunderland ‘Til I Die and Welcome to Wrexham. The most obvious is that Wrexham’s story is just as much, if not more, the story of two very famous actors doing the fish-out-of-water thing in both Wales and soccer ownership as it is the soccer […]
Editorial: Disappointing Start – But No Time To Wallow
We haven’t had to use the phrase ‘Typical Sunderland’ for a while now, but Saturday’s self-inflicted defeat at Portman Road falls firmly into that category, unfortunately. Of course, none of us like getting beat, and it’s ultra-frustrating when we gift-wrap the opposition two goals with two awful mistakes – the second of which allowed us […]
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