Sunderland remain unbeaten in League One after an impressive 2-0 win at Swindon moved the team to fifth in the table.

Given the size of the club and the budget that the Black Cats have, there is a pressure on Phil Parkinson to deliver promotion this season and the early signs have been positive.

Goals in either half from Charlie Wyke and a Chris Maguire effort from the spot ensured a comfortable win at Swindon and confidence will be high heading into tomorrow's game with Crewe.

The boss will be demanding a consistent run and the fixtures come thick and fast and here we look at TWO trends that are emerging from Sunderland's bright start...

Quiz: Can you identify these 10 ex-Sunderland players by looking at these hidden images?

They are hard to beat

We're not going to pretend that Sunderland have been brilliant to watch this season as that hasn't been the case. However, they are resolute, organised and hard to beat, conceding just once all season.

Picking up four clean sheets in five is mightily impressive and it gives the rest of the team a platform to build on. Grinding out results is a fantastic habit to get into and Sunderland are doing just that right now.

They are improving away from home

Last season, Sunderland averaged two points per game at home and lost just once, so their failure to make the play-offs was on their away form which wasn't good enough, collecting 21 points from 17 games.

Clearly, that needs to be improved on and the fact they've got seven from their opening three games, which have been in tough fixtures at Oxford, Charlton and Swindon, is a brilliant start. If they can get it right on the road, they will be hard to stop.