Sunderland look to keep pace in the race for seventh as they face relegation-battling Tottenham in a massive Premier League showdown.
Victory will lift Sunderland up to 10th in the table, whilst Tottenham can climb out of the relegation zone with a win and up to 16th if Nottingham Forest lose against Aston Villa.
Team News
Robin Roefs is set to return in goal for Sunderland following his recovery from a hamstring injury.
Nilson Angulo (unspecified), Jocelin Ta Bi (ankle), Dan Ballard, Romaine Mundle (hamstring) and Bertrand Traore (knee) will again be sidelined.
Tottenham will be without Guglielmo Vicario due to hernia surgery in the international break, meaning that Antonin Kinsky will start in goal.
Mathys Tel (thigh) and Pape Matar Sarr (shoulder) will be given late fitness tests.
Yves Bissouma (muscle), Rodrigo Bentancur (hamstring), Ben Davies (ankle), Mohammed Kudus (quad), James Maddison, Wilson Odobert (both ACL) and Dejan Kulusevski (knee) are still ruled out.
When is Kick-Off?
Sunderland host Tottenham at the Stadium of Light on Sunday 12 April at 2pm BST, live on Sky Sports Main Event in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Sunderland are winless in their last 15 Premier League meetings against Tottenham (D5, L10).
- Tottenham are unbeaten in their last seven visits to Sunderland (W4, D3).
- Three of Spurs’ last seven trips to Sunderland ended in 2-1 victories for the visitors.
- Sunderland have dropped five points in their last four matches (W2, D1, L1).
- Tottenham have failed to win any of their 13 league matches in 2026 (D5, L8).
Prediction
Having endured a tough last two months with inconsistent results. Sunderland now need to knuckle down and put a strong unbeaten run together to try and snatch European qualification especially after their clinical comeback at Newcastle, as a win here would put them one point off seventh-placed Brentford.
Tottenham meanwhile were just wasteful in their dominant attacking play and defensively exposed by poor marking which was clinically punished by Forest on the counter-attack, which underlines the task awaiting Roberto De Zerbi in his first game in charge on top of them now sitting third-bottom.
His biggest task though is instilling belief and confidence into this pretty broken team morale-wise which will take time, but he at least has Premier League experience which will be of benefit but the players also must raise their game for themselves and club if not at least the fans.
Sunderland though are coming into this game with renewed belief after their local derby win and a nice three-week break to prepare for this game, and I do fancy them to take that confidence and go and end their poor rut in this fixture but a goal would at least give Spurs a base to build on going forward.
Prediction: Sunderland 2-1 Tottenham
Result: Sunderland 1-0 Tottenham