Are Isidor's goals Sunderland's missing link?

Wilson Isidor has three goals in four starts for Sunderland

After 10 games, the Championship is starting to take shape and it is Sunderland who are sitting pretty at the top.

Their previously unheralded French head coach Regis Le Bris has overseen seven wins to lead the Black Cats to the summit.

They were not one of the immediate names considered for promotion in the summer, but with each passing week, belief and confidence are growing.

And the latest success, a 1-0 win at Hull City, offered a tantalising glimpse as to what is possible thanks to goalscorer Wilson Isidor.

When Sunderland were promoted out of League One in 2021-22, they had Ross Stewart's 26 goals as the focal point of their campaign.

The following season, he managed 11 goals in 12 games in the Championship, but it was a campaign blighted by injury for the big Scot.

Despite Stewart not playing from late January onwards, Tony Mowbray still managed to lead his talented team to the play-off semi-finals.

Last year, Stewart was sold to Southampton and not adequately replaced. Black Cats fans were crying out for a new striker.

To describe their attack as blunt would be an understatement. Their four strikers - three aged 20 and under - contributed a total of three goals over the season.

Winger Jack Clarke provided the inspiration with 15 goals, but they had dried up by mid-February.

Super sub in Russia

In fact, it was Clarke's departure for newly promoted Ipswich Town in August that opened the door for Sunderland's new striker to arrive.

Isidor was brought in on loan for the season from Zenit St Petersburg with an option to buy at the end of that.

A member of the same France youth set-up as Arsenal centre-back William Saliba and Chelsea pair Benoit Badiashile and Wesley Fofana, Isidor left Monaco in January 2022 for Lokomotiv Moscow, not long before the war in Ukraine began.

As Russian football was excluded from European competition, he scored seven goals in his first six games for Lokomotiv and managed eight in 20 games the following season, including a run of six in his last seven games, all scored off the bench.

That prompted a move to Zenit, where although he scored just eight minutes into his debut from the start, he would soon become a regular as a substitute.

Wilson Isidor scored 19 goals in 52 league games in Russia

Isidor had also started his first three games of this season on the bench, netting once, when he received a call from his former coach as a youngster at Rennes in Le Bris.

The 24-year-old headed to Wearside where his impact has been instant. Handed his first start at Watford last month, he has scored three in four games.

Two were predatory finishes in and around the six-yard box, while the goal at Hull showed pace and strength to lead a counter-attack from inside his own half before producing a cool finish.

The team had been crying out for a presence up front and Isidor has that, as witnessed at the MKM Stadium.

Early days of course, but Isidor has shown enough to have his new fans excited and his boss happy to have him.

'Wilson wants to improve'

"We had an advantage to sign him because I knew him before and I was connected with his story and his environment," Le Bris told BBC Sport.

"For him, it was a new step in his career because he wanted to come back to Europe, so Sunderland is very important for him.

"Then it's a question of creating the right environment for him. He wants to learn, he wants to improve.

"He has many qualities, but many elements to develop. When you have willingness to improve and you know that, it's good for the future."

And after his bright start, that will be music to the ears of anyone connected with Sunderland.