Tuesday night’s 1-1 draw marked 20 league games under Regis Le Bris, with a positive start and a frustrating run of results included in the Frenchman’s tenure at Sunderland so far. 20 games is a good milestone to have a look back on his spell so far as well as comparing it to Tony Mowbray’s first 20.
Nobody was expecting the start to RLB’s tenure to be as positive as it was, with five wins in our first six Championship games and not conceding at the SoL in our first four. The football was exciting and the high press was a key part of our play in the opening weeks of the campaign. Le Bris was getting the best out of the wingers, with Patrick Roberts looking sharp and Romaine Mundle stepping up to replace Jack Clarke with ease. 12 games into the season, the Black Cats sat five points clear, however this is where we began to see a change.
The 0-0 draw at QPR seemed to be a slight turning point from the positive start, with a run of four draws after the trip to Loftus Road followed by a 1-0 defeat to Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. There appeared to be a change in how we played. We sit now after a deflating draw at home to Bristol City, the high press has disappeared in recent games, the midfield has become too slow, constant side to side passing, always shifting it to the wingers instead of playing Wilson Isidor in behind. We have become a bit predictable and teams are maybe starting to realise how to nullify our strengths.
Le Bris has been hitting well above his weight class if we are being honest, nobody expected us to be up there at all at the start of the season, but he got us playing great football again and hopes were high. I feel like now we need the Frenchman to show a bit of versatility. Be a bit more proactive with subs, change the way we play instead of constantly relying on wingers and get us back to the style we were playing in the early stages of the season. We are far from panic stations but you can’t help but be frustrated at dropping points to sides we probably should be beating.
January is going to be huge, we need to back Le Bris with some quality signings and it should be an interesting few months to see where our season ends up.
RLB has started well though, and that cannot be underestimated. 20 league games in and he has a 50% win record. Comparing that to Mowbray, who managed a 40% win record in his opening 20 league fixtures, Le Bris has done great and we still sit in the play-offs which is something we would absolutely take come May. That said, the football we are playing at the moment is nowhere near what he gave us earlier in the season, and in general is not good enough and a bit too similar to what we saw at the back end of last season. Hopefully, as the Christmas fixtures draw closer and we approach the January window, we can hit a bit of form again and keep up with the leading pack.
