When asked about Sunderland's promotion hopes, the January transfer window and the club's long-term future, Regis Le Bris once again emphasised the importance of staying grounded and taking each day as it comes. He says that football is too unpredictable to be thinking about the end of the season already and just wants to focus on his team's current situation.
TRANSFERS OVER INTERNATIONAL BREAK?
“The main task was around our current team because I feel that the solution is here. The way we can develop our players, the players who didn’t play so much from the beginning of the season and our best players at the moment. Later, we know that probably we will have some weak positions so we are working on these positions. But that (transfer market work) wasn’t my main task.”
THREE TOUGH GAMES
“It is a big challenge, it is a massive week and interesting challenges. It doesn’t mean whether we win or lose these games that at the end we will be at the top of the table or further down, because it is still only 17 or 18 rounds of the league. These challenges are always interesting to assess our level at this moment, at this stage with this team. We want to face this challenge and we are very excited to play these kinds of games. At the end we will see, but I don’t think our true position will be at the end of these three games.”
ONLY PLAYED 15
“It is too early I think. For a French coach, this has been the warmup and now we are going to start the league, really! I know that the way to go is so long, but we are building a strong culture, we know that we have many talented players who can play as a unit - they did before, and they have to repeat and evolve. Every team evolves in the league so we have to make progress and introduce new layers, manage the depth of the squad and so on. At the minute we have played well but we can struggle. It is possible to have four, five, six, seven games with poor results. It doesn’t mean at the end you won’t be involved in the race. So, our main focus is to improve the team and manage the situation with the players we have in the team, and I believe they are going to cope with this situation.”
TWEAK THE GAME MODEL
“In this situation, our game model is the solution. How we want to play in every phase. It was very interesting during the international break to re-assess the game model and to define the different layers. We could say ‘when we played like that, in that phase, in that moment of the game, we were efficient. And when we made that mistake, we were in trouble’. It was very interesting to talk about that again because sometimes with the repetition of games you don’t know exactly when something went wrong or went well, so this period is very interesting for that. When we have to face a different style of play, probably the main focus is simply on your own game and how we want to play. You have to adapt some elements but not too much.”
NO PREDICTIONS
“Football is too unpredictable to make any predictions. Two weeks later it can be totally different. Two suspensions, two injuries, a bad period, I don’t know. In competition it is day-by-day. That is the only consideration. This is what I want to explain to the press, the players and the fans - enjoy it when it is good, support when it is more difficult and believe in our game model, our structure and our squad. Because obviously we will struggle sometimes but bad periods are very important to build on the next period, and if you keep the confidence and the learning process from different experiences in the end you will be bigger, stronger, and you can finish the league in the best way.”
