The £300k Sunderland transfer that trumps Ross Stewart signing considerably: View | OneFootball

Kevin Phillips will go down in history as an all-time great signing for Sunderland FC.

The English striker joined the Black Cats for a bargain fee in the summer of 1997.

They paid just £300,000 for a striker who had already scored 24 league goals for Watford, and had a huge future ahead of him in football.

While this seemed like a bargain at the time, Sunderland would never have guessed just how good Phillips would be for the team, nor expected the success his goals would bring them over the next six years.

Phillips scored 130 goals for The Black Cats

Phillips became an incredible goalscorer for Sunderland.

The striker netted 130 times for the Black Cats in six seasons at the club.

His first two seasons were in the First Division (now known as the Championship), where he helped fire the club to promotion with 23 goals in 26 games in his second year.

He got even better after the club reached the Premier League.

Shocking the world, he netted an astounding 30 goals in 36 league matches in the 1999/2000 season, leading the club to a seventh-place finish in the table.

This was their best top-flight finish since 1992, and cemented Phillips as a legend at the club.

His 30-goal haul earned Phillips the coveted European Golden Shoe award, as the highest scorer in all of Europe. He is, as of 2024, the only Englishman to take home the trophy, a statistic Sunderland fans will be quick to tell you.

Sunderland repeated that feat the following year. Another seventh place finish made the club one of the most formidable clubs in the league, with Phillips once again leading the club's scoring chart. He only netted 14 times, but Niall Quinn and Don Hutchinson added another 18 goals between them.

Sadly, his contributions lessened in the next two seasons.

The striker netted 17 times in the next two seasons for Sunderland, as their form suffered. A 17th place finish in 2002 saw the club go through three managers the next year, which ended in Mick McCarthy relegating the club at the end of the season.

He was on another level to fellow bargain buy Ross Stewart

Following relegation to the Championship in 2003, Phillips was snapped up by Southampton.

The Saints paid £3 million for the English striker, which is the equivalent to paying £18 million in the modern day. This gave the Black Cats a huge profit on a player who had been instrumental to their success over the past six years.

His success and the profit made on him can be compared to Ross Stewart.

The Scottish striker joined Sunderland in 2021 for a bargain fee of just £300,000 - the same as Phillips. Despite extensive injuries, he scored 40 goals in 81 games for Sunderland, which helped the club finish in the play-off places in 2023.

While they didn't win promotion to the Premier League, Stewart did attract interest from Southampton.

Just like with Phillips, the Saints paid a hefty fee for the forward. Sunderland received a cool £8 million fee (reportedly) for the striker, with an extra £4 million depending on certain clauses being met.

Stewart may have been impressive, but he never had the influence and success of Phillips.

The English striker led the club to the Premier League, knocking on the door of European football. He won accolades that nobody in the country had won before, and even in relegation, he is considered a legend at the club.