Sunderland soar back to Championship with playoff final win over Wycombe

If London did not already know it, Sunderland are in town. On Friday night thousands of supporters, as they have done previously, took over Trafalgar Square, where they were joined by their owner, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, and on Saturday afternoon more than 46,000 took their seats at Wembley to paint more than half of this arena in red and white. Many did not stay still for long and by the end, most stood, waving flags and cranking up the volume as Sunderland got over the line against Wycombe to end their four-year exile from the Championship, courtesy of goals from Elliot Embleton and Ross Stewart.

This time there would be no pain. After three playoff finals ended in misery, the last of which was three years ago against Charlton, Sunderland made relatively light work of this assignment. Stewart completed the victory with a low drive into the corner with 11 minutes to play after Embleton’s first-half piledriver set them on their way. For Embleton, who joined the club aged eight and was once a season-ticket holder at the Stadium of Light, it was the stuff of dreams. Embleton powered clear of Jason McCarthy and Josh Scowen, took three more strides and smacked the ball at goal with the laces of his right boot, just as it sat up nicely, from 25 yards. The Wycombe goalkeeper, David Stockdale, appeared powerless, raising his left arm as the ball flew past him before laying face-first on the turf.

Embleton made his Sunderland debut in 2017-18, when the club finished bottom of the second tier, succumbing to successive relegations in the process. They thoroughly deserved to return there on this evidence. Alex Pritchard set the tone with a free-kick that rattled the side netting, even if many of the Sunderland supporters at the other