Talking Tactics: Swansea (H) - A Pre-Season Affair

16/04/2025 07:00

Sunderland suffered a 1-0 defeat to Swansea City in a game that felt more akin to mid-July than early April — how did Le Bris experiment against the Swans?

Sunderland returned to the Stadium of Light for International Fans Weekend in what could only be described as feeling like the final match of an international pre-season tour facing off against domestic opposition before heading back home to begin the season, just this time it wasn't in mid-July, it was early April.

With only five games of the regular season remaining, Le Bris made telling comments within his press conference that he was trying to treat the run-in more as a mini pre-season and therefore split the games accordingly, with Sunderland looking to rotate and gain match fitness whilst simultaneously ramping up in intensity. With that being said, what went wrong versus Swansea and why shouldn't we be too concerned tactically heading into the final four?

Sunderland Lineup

As expected from conversations throughout the week, Le Bris made several more changes to his side that drew 0-0 down at Carrow Road midweek, Alan Browne returned to his utility role in defence with Trai Hume shifting back across to the left, in midfield Rigg remained in a slightly deeper role in place of Jobe who remained sidelined and Harrison Jones came in to make his first league start in the more advanced of the midfield trio. Wilson Isidor & Patrick Roberts both returned to their usual spots and Tommy Watson retained his place out on the left with Romaine Mundle set to be sidelined for several more weeks.

Stylistically, Sunderland still retained their usual shape and system, however, they experimented with a few different ways of buildup from their typical patterns of attacking play. I'll touch on these further below, but it gave a good opportunity to experiment with a slower tempo in build-up and created some slightly different passing options.

Opposition Lineup

With Swansea rooted firmly in mid-table, Alan Sheehan looked to end the season strongly off the back seven points from his last nine and made two changes from the convincing 3-0 win over Plymouth midweek. Liam Cullen and Jay Fulton came in to replace Jan Vipotnik and Joe Allen but other than that, Sheehan's side remained unchanged in an attempt to hopefully sneak a playoff spot on the final day of the season.

Swansea have built themselves a stylistic brand over the last decade that's continued under Alan Sheehan, reliant on ball retention and happy to play a high line to suffocate the opponent to regain possession as soon as possible. Swansea have always preferred to play at a slower tempo and things were no different here, lateral movement remains a core fundamental to move the opposition around and exploit gaps in the opponent's defensive armour, a typical 4-2-3-1 shape was adopted whilst Liam Cullen acted as the faux-nine capable of dropping in to link up play during build-up.

Trying Something Different

One thing that immediately stood out during the opening exchanges of this one was Le Bris trying several different tactical changes to his usual methodical approach to buildup.

Firstly, he mirrored his usual in-possession asymmetrical shape which normally sees Patrick Roberts camp on the touchline to provide lateral spacing, this role was instead given to Tommy Watson and Trai Hume the role of providing natural width whilst Browne & Roberts were tasked with inverting into the midfield to focus pressure before quickly transitioning diagonally left instead of our usual right.

In addition to this, whilst in possession, Roberts would also make diagonal tracking runs from the right to the left half-space in an attempt to create an overload and allow Tommy Watson to isolate himself 1v1 out wide and utilise Roberts and Hume as springboards in a similar way to how Amad operated under Mowbray.

Whilst neither of these subtle tweaks generated any chances for Sunderland, Le Bris tried to experiment with a different pattern of play within our usual build-up in an attempt to provide alternative solutions when struggling to generate chances against a well-structured defence in a playoff home-tie situation. It might not have been pretty to watch, but without attempting these in live game situations, we'd be unable to determine the overall effectiveness of them going forward.

Slower Tempo from Goal Kicks

One aspect of the 'tinkering' which certainly caused large groans of discontent in the ground was the deliberate walking tempo undertaken when Sunderland played goal kicks, with Patterson and O'Nien both spending elongated periods standing on the ball in an attempt to draw Swansea in to press before shifting wide to Chris Mepham.

In a similar way to how Brighton & Le Bris' Lorient sides would often build out, tempo would deliberately slow to a crawl before a series of quick one-touch passes exploited the vacated space by opposition defenders and despite the groans worked to generate Sunderland's two opportunities in the first half.

Both of Tommy Watson's first half strikes as well as Isidor's offside goal came from a slow and conservative retention of possession in the Sunderland defensive third before a series of quick progressive passes ramped the tempo from 0-100 to get in behind the Swansea high line.

Whilst it's not always easy to watch given Patterson's history of poor kicking, with teams now actively looking to play a ridiculously high line in order to mitigate Wilson Isidor's raw pace and rely on him timing his run to perfection, an alternative way of shuffling the opposition defenders is by utilising this quick tempo shift more often.

Isidor v The Linesman

There's no denying that everyone at Sunderland AFC wants Isidor to break his scoring drought, none more evident than Chris Rigg having an opportunity to opening the scoring but instead looking to pass to his teammate from 8-yards out for an easy tap in however it's becoming clear that teams are nullifying our French forward in a rather unorthodox way.

Traditionally, a basic tactic to avoid being undone by an overly pacy striker is to drop the defensive line 10 yards deeper to prevent being beaten for pace, but the price to pay is giving up territorial advantage, which against technical players like Rigg & Roberts isn't ideal. Teams have however, decided to start doing the absolute opposite against Isidor and have noticed the Frenchman often mistimes his runs due to underestimating his own pace against slower defenders.

Due to wanting to play on the last shoulder, Isidor often finds himself darting away from defenders too eagerly and sees himself flagged offside four times in the opening half of this game. Instances in the second half saw the Frenchman start his run several yards behind the defender and still reach the ball at the same time demonstrating that he often underestimates his raw pace and just neds to start his runs slightly deeper to prevent the flag from being raised so often.

Fresh Legs & Rotation

With Dan Neil remaining the ever-present within this Sunderland side as club captain, he's struggled to get much in the way of rest this season, even playing a full 120 minutes in Sunderland's FA cup tie. With Salis Abdul Samed back in the matchday squad, he was able to replace Neil and provided the captain with some much-needed rest.

Contrary to the online discourse, Samed showed encouraging signs during his fifteen-minute cameo; his passing range was very much that of a typical six, and his aggressive ball carrying remains an asset that can give Sunderland some comfort in the event that Neil is required to leave the field during Sunderland's playoff campaign.

Similarly, Le Fee had his minutes restriction increased with an aim of having the Frenchman fully fit for the final two games ahead of the post-season and once again showcased his ability to be a class above those around him in the league. Operating in a more central role, he looked just as comfortable playing deeper in a midfield two as he does as the most advanced in a midfield three.

With Milan Aleksic, Leo Hjelde, Mayenda & Jones also all receiving minutes on the day, Sunderland have given vital match experience to the wider squad if further injury requires them to play a part in a promotion story at the final hurdle.

Remaining positive

With Sunderland two points away from also mathematically securing fourth place, the remaining games of the season should see similar rotations occurring, with the intensity gradually increasing as the weeks go by. In a strange change of routine, our final game against QPR may feel like more of a competitive outing than the previous half dozen, despite it being on the final day of the season.

With form and momentum also playing a large role in the success of teams who end up promoted through the playoffs I suspect that the Easter weekend will mark the end of Sunderland's 'mini pre-season' period and we'll see the intensity ramp up compared to the previous four games, but what this short spell has allowed us to do is experiment with slightly different tactics and rest some of our key performers before the chaos ensues.