Having kept his 10th clean sheet of the season, Sunderland keeper Anthony Patterson praised the togetherness of the team in battling through resilience to beat Derby County.

Eliezer Mayenda’s fourth goal of the season was the difference between the two sides as Sunderland kept hold of their unbeaten start to 2025.

Speaking after the game, Patterson said: “First half we controlled the game, we didn’t give Derby a sniff, we controlled the possession. We made it really difficult for them to get a foothold in the game. Then in the second half, we took our foot off the gas and gave them too much time on the ball. They made it a little bit ugly for us but I think we defended that game really well and saw the game out.”

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Patterson was called upon a number of occasions in the second half making several saves to keep out the hosts.

“It’s the same for any keeper,” he added. “Maintaining that focus, make sure you are still in the game and when you are called upon, you have moments like that where you’ve got to make a save. I do whatever, the most important thing is getting the win. Obviously me and all the lads are really happy with how we have defended so far this season. We've got a good number of clean sheets. We want to keep building on that and keep getting better defensively.”

It’s the sign of a good side to win when not playing at your fluent best and he added: “I think one of the lads said, you look back at this game two or three years ago and it would have been difficult for us but we managed to get the three points and we defended really well and managed to come away with the 1-0. Now we have Plymouth which is another tricky game. We know what Plymouth are going to bring and we need to be better than them.”