Patrick Roberts puzzle: Sunderland legend baffled as Nick Barnes flags sudden tactical switch

• by Arlen Fitzpatrick
• 0 Comments

The form dip no one saw coming

Here’s the puzzle: a winger who looked central to Sunderland’s plan a few months ago now feels oddly disconnected from it. Patrick Roberts started this campaign with the swagger you expect from a senior pro who has finally found a system that suits him. Then something shifted. A club legend has said he can’t work out what’s going on, and BBC pundit Nick Barnes has highlighted a sudden tactical change on the right. The eye test and the numbers line up: Roberts isn’t influencing games the way he did in August and September.

The backdrop matters. Last season was rough for Roberts — injuries, two assists, no goals, and long spells where he was easy to lock down. Under Regis Le Bris, the early-season tweak was simple but smart: create a right-sided triangle with Chris Rigg and Trai Hume, keep distances tight, and give Roberts options inside and outside. When he carried the ball infield, Rigg arrived to combine. When he held width, Hume overlapped or underlapped. It stopped him being isolated 1v2 on the touchline.

That platform produced end product. Roberts put up three assists and a goal early in the Championship campaign, which felt like a clean break from last year’s frustration. He looked fitter, the passing lanes were cleaner, and Sunderland’s right side had rhythm. Then came the dip. Recent weeks have seen performances tail off and the fan debate intensify: should he still start?

The raw numbers tell their own story. Across 33 appearances in 2024/25, Roberts has two goals and five assists. His expected goals sits at 5.1 — so he’s underperforming his chances — and he’s only averaging about a quarter of a cross into the box per 90 minutes. For a right-sided creator, that’s a low diet of deliveries and a big gap between the chances his positions promise and the finishes they’ve produced. Some of that is variance. Some of it is shot selection. A lot of it is the structure around him.

What changed tactically — and what Sunderland can do now

Barnes’ point about a sudden change isn’t a throwaway line. The right flank has been rebalanced. In several recent matches, Sunderland’s spacing on that side has stretched: Rigg has spent longer spells pinching centrally or running beyond the striker, while Hume has been tasked with deeper build-up or conservative positioning. That sounds minor. On the pitch, it’s the difference between Roberts having two live passing lanes and being asked to beat two defenders with little support.

When the triangle breaks, two things happen. First, defenders can double up on Roberts without paying a price, because the underlap isn’t there to punish them. Second, pressing becomes predictable — he receives on the touchline, gets funneled onto his weaker foot, and is forced back. The result: fewer carries into the box, fewer cut-backs, and more sterile possession.

There’s also the squad piece. Sunderland don’t have a like-for-like right-wing replacement ready to jump in. Eliezer Mayenda has nailed down the nine. Adil Aouchiche is out on loan. Moving Roberts out would mean shuffling someone away from their best role — Rigg to the wing, or asking Romaine Mundle or Tommy Watson to operate off their natural side. That’s not a simple fix in the middle of a playoff push.

Le Bris has defended Roberts’ value this season, leaning on his experience and fitness after that stop-start year. He has a point. Even when he isn’t racking up goals, Roberts draws fouls, holds width to stretch the block, and can still connect the right side with quick exchanges when the pieces around him are close enough. The problem lately is proximity: the combinations just aren’t there often enough.

So what can change now, without a new signing?

• Reunite the triangle. Push Hume five yards higher on first phase, and keep Rigg closer on the half-turn. The goal is to give Roberts two pass-and-move options before pressure lands.
• Flip the timing of underlaps. If fullback overlaps aren’t on, run the underlap from a midfielder. The decoy matters more than who does it.
• Occasional side swap. Ten-minute spells on the left can reframe his 1v1s and open inside-out crosses with his left foot. Small change, fresh pictures.
• Earlier rotations. A 60–30 split with Mundle or Watson doesn’t “drop” Roberts; it concentrates his high-impact minutes and keeps defenders guessing late on.
• Set-piece involvement. Short-corner routines to isolate him against a single marker can manufacture the touches he’s missing in open play.

There’s also the finishing gap. An xG of 5.1 and only two goals suggests two things at once: he’s getting into some good spots, and he isn’t converting at the rate you’d expect. That can flip fast — one clean finish, one deflection, and the conversation softens — but Sunderland can help by sharpening the quality of those chances. Cut-backs and second-phase shots inside the box tend to yield better returns than low-percentage efforts from the angle.

Fans asking why he keeps starting aren’t being unreasonable. Form is form. But selection is never just a spreadsheet. Roberts’ relationships on that flank — quick give-and-goes with Rigg, the timing with Hume — are baked into how Le Bris wants to progress the ball. Remove him, and you alter the rhythm of the right side. Keep him, and you need to restore the spacing that made the wing work in the first place.

Context matters with him too. Roberts isn’t a classic byline winger who lives to sling in six crosses a game. He’s an inverted dribbler who wants defenders to commit, then slip a runner or hit a cut-back. When his options are one-paced or too far away, his touches look safe and predictable. When runners are close, he looks slippery again. That’s why the early-season version of Sunderland — compact triangles, constant support — suited him so well.

There’s a bigger-picture angle. The right wing is likely a summer upgrade area. Not because Roberts has nothing to offer, but because the squad is thin for that role and the team could use a different profile to rotate: a pure sprinter who threatens behind, or a left-footer who delivers early. That kind of partner changes how teams defend the side and takes some of the creative burden off him.

None of this erases what he’s already given the club. The Hillsborough winner in the 2022 play-off semi-final still echoes. His career arc — Fulham prodigy, Manchester City move, years of loans, then landing in Sunderland and rebuilding — explains his steadiness in stormy runs of form. He doesn’t hide. The question now is whether Sunderland can re-create the conditions that let his craft matter, and do it quickly.

Short term, the cleanest fix is the simplest: tighten the right side again. Keep Hume connected. Keep Rigg close enough to bounce passes. Let Roberts carry, combine, and create. If he returns to the early-season patterns — fewer dead-end dribbles, more third-man runs, sharper cut-backs — the output will follow. If not, expect minutes to be shared more aggressively until the summer window provides a fresh option.

It’s a small tactical change with a big effect. Put the triangle back together, and the debate around Roberts looks very different.