Sunderland a cautionary lesson to Wolves that a Premier League dream can still end in a nightmare

Sunderland 3-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers: The Black Cats ended a dismal campaign with a rare victory, only a third on home soil all season

Sunderland ended their dismal season with a surprise win (PA)

The crowd cheered, there was applause, a sort of lap of honour even, incredibly, as Sunderland slid into the third tier of English football on a bizarre afternoon at the Stadium of Light.

One swallow it seemed, did a summer make.

A rare victory, the third of this most draining of seasons on home soil, only the 21st in a league game on Wearside in the last five years, ensured much delight. It somehow ended up being a sombre day for the 2600 supporters from Wolves, who had arrived expecting a party to serenade their league-winning side. The gap between the champions and the chumps was cut to just 62 points by the finish.

Nothing made sense.

In reality, there was a warning, for that is what Wolves were really looking at in their hosts, about what the Premier League can do to your football club if you get it wrong.

Fletcher opened the scoring against the champions (PA)

Sunderland won football’s lottery and ended up on skid row. It remains staggering that the £866 million they earned in their nine-year stay in the richest division in the world created the worst team in the club’s entire history; not so much fools gold as fools with gold.

The Premier League pours money into football clubs who enter its chocolate factory. Sunderland picked up £95.6 million from broadcasting income last season. Their income was £126.4 million, and yet they exit the second tier of English football after a successive relegation, penniless.

Ellis Short, the abrasive American owner, has lost around a quarter of a billion pounds because he got involved in football after chatting with Niall Quinn at a golf tournament. The club had £161.7 million worth of debt when the latest push started to find someone to take it off Short’s hands earlier this year. It is said he will wipe that out if Stewart Donald is successful in his takeover of the club. Donald, a man of far less wealth than Short, was sat in an executive box at the stadium yesterday.

A penny, which is pretty much all that is left, for his thoughts would have been interesting, as he watched loan players Ovie Ejaria and Ashley Fletcher score in the first half, and then Paddy McNair, the club’s one saleable asset, add a third in the second.

Wolves looked embarrassed by their final day ineptitude, and departed the field much more quickly than on the guard of honour they were afforded to enter it.

But as the players of a club with genuine ambition left the pitch, the ghost of promotions past was all around; empty seats, failed dreams and Accrington Stanley on next season’s fixture list.

This decade was Sunderland’s chance to become a big club, and they blew it.

Sunderland's fans were at least given something to cheer (PA)

Wolves have carried the air of hunger all season, lean and ready for bigger fish to fry. Nuno Espirito Santo will get that chance in the Premier League. Recruiting decent footballers, perhaps Sunderland’s biggest failing of all (they spent £601 million wages in their nine year stay with the elite), will give them half a chance.

Unsurprisingly the remnants of reckless spending could not bring together a football team, 24th in the Championship with 37 points, six adrift of safety.

Wolverhampton Wanderers have not been in the Premier League since 2012. Like Sunderland, they double dropped, slipping straight into League One. Relegation is a punishing business. The chasm between the top two tiers is becoming wider.

Sunderland, Hull and Middlesbrough were all relegated this time last year and only the latter can return, after securing a play-off place after changing manager mid-season.

What Wolves have shown is the benefit of a plan, even if it has courted with controversy. They must stick to that. Reckless spending wrecks football clubs.

Sunderland, despite a bizarre last day, must hope that 44th really is rock bottom.