“Didn’t give me much encouragement” – Sunderland player on own research before joining Black Cats

Sunderland‘s Melker Ellborg says his spirts weren’t high after watching the Netflix documentary about the club on his way to join them.

The Premier League side invested just below €4m to sign the goalkeeper from Malmö FF in January.

He has been a backup for Robin Roefs, who arrived at Sunderland from NEC Nijmegen last summer.

The Swede kept a clean sheet and conceded three goals from four matches for the Black Cats last season. With Roefs ahead of him, the 23-year-old made one appearance in the EFL Cup this season.

Yet to finish Sunderland documentary 

Régis Le Bris has left Melker Ellborg out of the Europa League group stage squad. This has not at all pleased the stopper, who made his feelings public last week.

He explained this to Fotbollskanalen‘s podcast, Lundh, and the outlet has released more comments from him, this time about his move to the Stadium of Light.

On his way to complete the move to the Premier League, he watched their documentary: Sunderland ‘Til I Die. The first season covered their 2017/18 season, where they dropped out of the Championship.

He said: “I watched a few episodes on the way here for the first time. But it was quite tough environments then, so I felt it didn’t give me much encouragement to watch the series. So, I haven’t actually finished it yet. I should do it now that I know how much love.”

Sunderland’s PL run impressed Swede 

The English club made progress after Kyril Louis-Dreyfus took over in 2020. Régis Le Bris arrived in 2025 and helped the Black Cats secure a promotion to the Premier League.

Last season, Sunderland finished seventh in the table and qualified for the Europa League.

Although he wasn’t initially aware where Sunderland were in England, their form under Le Bris in the top flight seems to have convinced him.

When asked about his reaction after learning about Sunderland’s interest, Melker Ellborg explained: “I had to open ‘Maps’ [app] where it was located somewhere in England.” 

“But I’d been following their Premier League autumn campaign and seen that they’d made a huge impression. I had seen that it was a very functional team with a lot of momentum behind it and so on. My first reaction was brilliant: here comes a big club that’s riding high.”