Reflections on Régis Le Bris' first six months at Sunderland

12/13/2024 01:00 AM

The Frenchman has made a significant impact on Wearside but recent results and performances have been slightly disappointing. Ewan Bowman looks at how we're faring under his management

Since his arrival in the summer, Régis Le Bris has done an excellent job in leading Sunderland to fourth place (at the time of writing) in the Sky Bet Championship table. He also won two 'manager of the month' awards in the first five months of the season… and was the last time a Sunderland manager or head coach achieved such a feat?

When he was appointed, very few people had heard of Le Bris or knew little about him, but from the minute he walked into the Academy of Light, things changed, and for the better.

In his first press conference, he said he'd taken inspiration from Pep Guardiola and Roberto De Zerbi, and that he wanted us to press high up the pitch and play attacking football.

It sounded like quite a contrast to the dross that Michael Beale and Mike Dodds served up in the second half of last season, and on hearing those quotes, the players must've been chomping at the bit to get going.

Le Bris clearly worked on the mentality and fitness of the players throughout the summer. There was clear evidence of this throughout the pre-season matches, but we weren't expecting the kind of start to the season that we had.

We flew out of the traps, playing some great football and starting the season off with four straight wins, scoring ten goals and only conceding a Luke O'Nien own goal at Portsmouth.

Then our momentum was halted by an international break.

A last-minute loss to lowly Plymouth, a derby day win over Middlesbrough and then another late defeat at Watford followed in the month of September. Following another dire international break, we returned to our early-season form in October, with wins against Derby, Luton, Oxford and Hull, whilst earning a point at home to Leeds- albeit via a hilarious own goal.

However, since the start of November, there have been more questions asked. Not to the point where full postmortems need to be carried out, but in relation to Le Bris' game management, tactics and substitutions during matches.

Individual mistakes can happen.

Jobe's red card at QPR was stonewall and the point earned wasn't a bad result considering the circumstances. At Sheffield United, we dominated the whole game despite Chris Mepham's dubious red card, but we just didn't take our chances and the same could be said against West Brom at home.

Against Coventry, we were cruising at 2-0 going into half time, but in the second half, we just sat back and invited pressure.

Coventry scored to make it 2-1 before Le Bris brought on Dan Ballard for the injured Alan Browne, and we reverted to playing with five at the back. Aaron Connolly coming on for Romaine Mundle was the other substitution made that day.

I understand that we were missing Jobe and Chris Rigg, but why not bring Milan Aleksić on as a 'like for like', or even Eliezer Mayenda as an outlet? It reminded me of the Jack Ross days in League One when we sat back on a lead.

Inevitably, Coventry equalised and the points were shared, and the same happened a week later at Millwall, where Aleksić missed a golden chance to make it 2-0 before Millwall went up the other end and scored.

The second half at The Den followed a similar pattern to the week before: sitting back and hoping to defend a lead. It was incredibly frustrating to watch and only Aleksić was brought on from the substitutes bench.

Injuries understandably weaken sides throughout the course of a season.

Mundle and Browne were ruled out until the New Year at the start of November and Tommy Watson will be out for eight weeks with knee and ankle trouble. However, the lack of depth on the bench has been a cause for concern in recent weeks and has doubtless has played into Le Bris' thinking.

When most players were fit, he very rarely changed the starting line up much- if at all, which leads me to believe he has a core of players in whom he has full trust, and others that he doesn't.

The ones he trusts fully are Anthony Patterson, Trai Hume, Luke O'Nien, Chris Mepham, Dan Ballard, Dennis Cirkin, Aji Alese, Dan Neil, Jobe Bellingham, Chris Rigg, Patrick Roberts, Alan Browne, Romaine Mundle and Wilson Isidor. The remainder of the players in the squad are either on the fringes of that list, or nowhere near.

Le Bris has said that he expects a quiet January transfer window, but with games coming thick and fast, both he and the club's plans may change depending on the availability of targets, injuries and where we are in the league come the New Year.

Overall, Le Bris has done a brilliant job so far and long may it continue.

He'a brought belief back to the club, its fans and the entire city. I just hope that he can adapt at times throughout matches, which may determine whether we come away from games with more wins than draws and defeats during the second half of the season.