How will they cope? Can they cope?Twelve months ago, a mix of surprise and scepticism met Sunderland’s return to the Premier League via the 2-1 play-off final win at Wembley against Sheffield United. Tommy Watson scored that 95th-minute winner and immediately, downstairs in the tunnel at Wembley, the Sunderland players and staff were being asked if the club was really ‘Premier League-ready’.Twelve months on — to the day — past the 100-minute mark at the Stadium of Light on Sunday, another 2-1 win was sealed amid a comparable cacophony. Sunderland had beaten Chelsea, a team playing Champions League football in mid-March. The victory lifted Regis Le Bris’s players up to seventh in the Premier League and into the Europa League. Immediately, Le Bris was asked anxiously if the club would need a bigger squad. Are they Europa League-ready?It is understandable that questions should come. Last May, Sunderland had been in League One more recently than in the Premier League; on Sunday came the realisation the club have not played in Europe since November 1973, when Bob Stokoe managed the Second Division team.Yet it was as if these two landmark May results had created internal stress as well as delight and concerns about how Sunderland cope with European football, if they can cope, ignore the evidence supplied this past year.Sunderland’s Luke O’Nien celebrates the team’s achievement (Stu Forster/Getty Images)Having not spent more than £3million ($4m) on a player on the way to the top division, the £16m transfer from Roma of Enzo Le Fee was confirmed, while majority shareholder Kyril Louis-Dreyfus used his Swiss contacts to start wooing Granit Xhaka. Xhaka then recommended Nordi Mukiele, who had been on loan from Paris Saint-Germain with him at Bayer Leverkusen, and Sunderland had three players who eclipsed any of Chelsea’s on Sunday.Not that they were alone. Sunderland were excellent overall. Premier League-ready.Last summer’s 14 signings became a team and a tight squad. There will always be individuals disappointed by their lack of minutes — Eliezer Mayenda, for example — though it was he who made a point about the upping of standards in training because strikers were facing the likes of Mukiele, Omar Alderete and Dan Ballard every day. “If you want to replace someone in the squad, it’s really demanding,” Mayenda said.He was 20 when he scored the first goal of Sunderland’s season last August. It was an afternoon similar in sunshine and noise to Sunday as West Ham were defeated 3-0.The upward cycle continued with a 10-man draw against Aston Villa and a first away win at Nottingham Forest. Chelsea were beaten at Stamford Bridge as Brian Brobbey made his presence felt. Brobbey has this week been included in the Netherlands squad for the World Cup, as has goalkeeper Robin Roefs.Brian Brobbey makes his presence felt against Chelsea (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)By January, Le Bris could tell reporters: “We are getting better, our high press is getting better, we are still strong defending our goal. Our build-up is more composed. We still have this last bit to reinforce — the goalscoring attitude is a part to develop.”They had coped with the loss of players to AFCON and never slipped below 13th in the table. Once Le Bris’s “40 points” were achieved with a victory at Elland Road, the players had a reset and Europe was the aim.Goalscoring was still an issue — Sunderland are the only top-10 club to have a minus goal difference — but as the team continued to push, there were two scored at Newcastle, three at Villa and three at Everton in the last four away games. Le Fee has flowed over the finishing line.All the while, others took notice. Roefs and Noah Sadiki became the subject of sustained transfer speculation. They may yet be sold if the offers are too large to reject. With interest in on-loan Lutsharel Geetruida, there were flickers of worry on Wearside about the core of the team being undermined.But Le Bris reiterated last Friday, pre-Chelsea, “We don’t need to sell.” A fortnight ago, on the theme of continuity, on the prospect of having seven, eight or nine of this season’s regulars in his first August starting XI, he said: “We had the conversation with performance staff just before, so we know exactly how we will work next season.“We have references about the tactical side — we won’t start from scratch, we will start with 38 games behind us, 38 weeks of prep, 38 reviews, so the culture now is bigger. The level of detail is not first layer, it’s probably third, fourth, fifth. It’s always important to reinforce the foundations but, with stability, you can have this platform.”The message is: Sunderland will be stronger next season because of this season’s experience, not weaker because of European football. They are no longer ‘newly promoted’. Sunday’s leap to seventh brought in an extra £11million in ‘prize money’ taking their total to £168.2m. European economic restrictions now apply, but as Xhaka said on the pitch after the Chelsea game to a still-full stadium: “This is just the beginning and we will want more.”Granit Xhaka leads Sunderland out into the din at the Stadium of Light (George Wood/Getty Images)Long-suffering fans — and it is head-turning to think Sunderland lost 6-0 at Bolton in League One four years and four months ago — relished every second. The only way Sunday could have been better was if Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn had run on. Famously, they scored four against Chelsea in the first half in 1999, a cherished event at the stadium.Sunday will equal that for many. The hierarchy were on the pitch afterwards, too, and must have been moved by the scenes. There is talk in the air of a sale, based on credible reporting from New York, but it might just be a finger in the wind. Sunderland will enhance their U.S. profile in July with games in Nashville (Liverpool), New Jersey (Leeds) and Philadelphia (Wrexham).On Monday, the squad and board regathered at the ground.Louis-Dreyfus made a speech. Players and staff were given engraved miners’ lamps to mark the season. It was fitting — Sunday’s match programme had carried an article reminding all that the Stadium of Light’s name stems in part from coal mining. This was once the site of the deepest pit in the world. Fifty-five miners died in that pit, the first three boys aged 10, 12 and 15. Their surnames were Gilroy, Burrell and Gray and they should matter as much as Xhaka, Phillips, Stokoe.Another name is Andy Edmonds. Andy worked for Sunderland from 1988 at Roker Park. He ‘ran’ the press room. He was five foot nothing with a ten-foot personality. He had been a good player in his day, on the books of Sunderland and Leeds. He worked in the local shipyards for decades and spoke like it. On those many, many days across many, many seasons when Sunderland were losing at half-time, we would return to the press room for a cup of tea to find Andy, TV remote in hand, shaking his head saying: “Eee, why di they nevar shooooot?”He was 85 and still working at the Manchester City game on New Year’s Day. He died at home two days later.In shock, a few hundred met in Quinn’s Bar at the stadium six weeks later to say farewell. Quinn himself appeared from Ireland on a big screen. Andy saw Sunderland in Europe the first time round. Over half a century on, they are back.