Eliezer Mayenda’s Departure: Tough But Necessary For Sunderland?

First and foremost, it’s nigh on impossible to argue against the economic logic of Eliezer Mayenda’s sale to Rennes.

A fee rumoured to be north of £20 million for a player that cost around £800,000 when we signed him from Sochaux in 2023 represents another piece of Sunderland transfer wizardry and even once sell-on clauses are factored in, the profit will be hefty and it’ll be clear that the principles of “Sign, nurture, develop, sell and hopefully reinvest smartly” have been adhered to once again.

He scored our first goal of the 2025/2026 season, rising high to power a header past a stranded Mads Hermansen when West Ham made the trip north last summer, but will Mayenda pass this way again?

Maybe not in red and white, but after two or three hopefully productive seasons in France, I could easily see him making a big-money move to a rival Premier League club. In the meantime, we can add another forward to the summer shopping list; hopefully, this means that Wilson Isidor will remain on Wearside, and the road goes ever on and on.

This sale undoubtedly shines a spotlight on the challenge being faced by Sunderland.

Keeping the cash flow graphs pointing in the right direction is one of the key tenets of our approach nowadays — and make no mistake, it absolutely has to be.

It began under Kristjaan Speakman, who oversaw the sales of Ross Stewart, Jack Clarke and Jobe Bellingham for colossal profits on the original outlay, and although Mayenda’s move to France may not be a headline-grabber in the same sense as Bellingham’s switch to Borussia Dortmund, it’s a ringing endorsement of the environment we’ve created for young players as well as Sunderland’s newly-acquired status as a growing force in the transfer market.

With that in mind, I do wonder whether what we’re seeing is further evidence of a riff on the approach to transfer dealings that was put into practice so successfully by Arsenal under Arsene Wenger.

There was a manager who certainly knew how many beans made five, and that for his club to compete in the rapidly changing landscape of the cash-rich Premier League, which began to boom during the late 1990s and early 2000s, he had to judge his sales of players as shrewdly as he did his purchases.

In terms of sheer numbers, is Mayenda’s sale Sunderland’s very own ‘Nicolas Anelka moment’?

The notoriously restless French striker arrived at Highbury from Monaco in 1997 and helped the Gunners to a league and FA Cup double in 1998/1999 before departing — although perhaps not as an out-and-out Galactico — for Real Madrid for over £22 million in 1999. In his place came a winger-turned-striker by the name of Thierry Henry, and for Arsenal, the rest was history.

Different players, yes, but the principle is the same. Buy for comparative pennies, give the player the time and space to grow and contribute, and sell for much, much more — and that’s clearly what we’re striving for here. It’s a strategy that’ll hopefully enable us to establish a competitive foothold in the top flight during the years ahead.

After arriving as part of the intake during the summer of 2023, Mayenda’s Sunderland spell was curious, and it’s probably safe to say that few of us would’ve envisaged his career panning out as it has.

His first act of note in a red and white shirt was to hammer a shot at Birmingham City goalkeeper John Ruddy’s face minutes after entering the fray at the Stadium of Light, and his last was to open the scoring for the Lads at Bournemouth.

In between came a frankly baffling loan spell at Hibernian (“Ach. The Big Man didnae show any signs of being a £20 million player for us”, they might currently be saying in Leith), and a 2024/2025 campaign that saw a series of exciting performances, superb goals, and eventual playoff success.

Mayenda was key during that unforgettable period, showing a big-game mentality, scoring two crucial goals on the road to the Premier League — the first against Coventry City and a priceless equaliser against Sheffield United at Wembley before becoming the first footballer on record to make a Randy Orton-themed celebration look cooler than the other side of the pillow.

I like him a lot. And it should also be noted that he’s not a ‘cult hero’, either. Go beyond the chants and the ‘vibes’ and you’re looking at a footballer with a very high ceiling and the ability to make a major impact across the English Channel.

I love his turn of pace, his resilience (exhibited when he bounced back strongly after two poor misses against Stoke and Blackburn during 2024/2025) and his dynamic style of play, which could carry him a long way on the basis that he sharpens up his finishing, which you might say is the one weakness in his game at the moment.

On the other hand, as much as I admire Mayenda and believe in his potential, I understand why this deal has been cut. As unromantic as it sounds, we’re not just supporting a football club nowadays — we’re supporting (in various ways) a business, one whose power brokers often have to make hard decisions and from which popular players and key figures will occasionally depart.

I get the need for game time, which wouldn’t have been guaranteed even with the added demands of European football for 2026/2027, and of our three forwards, you could argue that he was always the most likely to leave this summer.

I hope he enjoys a successful and goal-laden career. I hope that Sunderland reinvest wisely in order to replace him, and I also hope that with the passage of time, we don’t end up viewing him as a player to be filed under “Let’s have a look at what you could’ve kept”.

Go well, Eli. Thanks for the past three years, and hopefully we’ll cross paths with you somewhere down the road!