Phil Smith: My honest thoughts on the situation at Sunderland and Régis Le Bris's position
Sunderland remain rooted to the bottom of the Premier League following a dismal defeat at Coventry City
Somewhere amongst the anger and the bewilderment at this insipid first half from Sunderland came sadness. Where is the team that we knew and loved?
Still early days, plenty of football to be played etc. but this was once again a team unrecognisable from what we have been fortunate enough to become accustomed to over the last two years. There was a team on the pitch playing with intensity and spirit, making life difficult for the opposition and seemingly winning every duel. It just wasn’t Sunderland. What happened to the underdog mentality that defined the club’s meteoric rise? The team that would throw itself in front of every shot, treat every tackle like the game’s defining moment?
Once again the root cause of this defeat was individual mistakes, Coventry City 2-0 up without having to create much in the way of clear chances. This first half in particular was more than that, though. After Bournemouth you could try and convince yourself that every team has an off day, but there was no excuse for this lack of urgency and intensity just two weeks later for a game that had such clear significance for the rest of the campaign ahead.
The conversation will now inevitably turn to the head coach. It is of course harsh given everything Régis Le Bris has achieved at the club, but that is not the same as saying it is not valid. Since the October international break, Sunderland have in the Premier League at least looked a shadow of the team who were so hard to beat and so tough to play against in his first two seasons at the club. Performances have become muddled and the identity of the side hard to discern: they don’t go direct and break with real purpose often enough but when they build out from the back they look increasingly vulnerable. His loyalty to players who have done so well for him so often is understandable, but it has begun to look misplaced and particularly when not making half-time changes either here or at Bournemouth. Right now Sunderland are failing at the basics and that puts the conversation on the table. This is the Premier League and there are hundreds of millions of pounds at stake: Sunderland have enjoyed a strong long-term strategy under Kyril Louis-Dreyfus but change on and off the pitch has been a constant theme of his time on Wearside. If performances like this continue, there is an inevitability about what comes next. Le Bris’s main issue right now is that they have never under his management been a free-flowing attacking side and so when the defensive foundation dissipates, they have very quickly looked rudderless.
Sunderland are underperforming, but no one should be under any illusions that a change in head coach will be a transformative tonic by itself. First and foremost, Le Bris has been hamstrung by persistent injuries in key positions. Habib Diarra was identified as a key player this year who could add freshness and competition following a tough first season, but has barely kicked a ball in the Premier League. Nordi Mukiele, Thomas Meunier and Dan Ballard have missed big games, with Le Bris already naming seven different central defensive partnerships. Until that stops and some stability is found in this crucial part of the pitch, Sunderland’s struggles and the costly mistakes that have underpinned them are likely to continue.
Le Bris has also had to deal with the hangover of a summer transfer window which by Florent Ghisolfi’s own admission did not deliver as much as hoped. Le Bris has frustrated fans with some of his selection decisions and in particular his reluctance to field two wingers because of his concerns over their inexperience, but he needed more help in the summer. A right winger was an obvious priority from the moment Bertrand Traoré’s departure was confirmed and yet never arrived. Chemsdine Talbi’s absence from the side became a rare dividing line between dugout and terrace, but Le Bris was left to handle a difficult situation in which Sunderland’s search for a new winger clearly nudged Talbi down the pecking order and eventually left him stacked with left-sided options. Was the disruption worth it? It is still very early days and Malick Fofana’s last two cup performances have been improved, but you would have to say at this stage that it was not. Similarly, Meunier was a smart pick up but the decision not to sign Luthsharel Geertruida in order to prioritise other areas of the pitch looks questionable when those players are not in the starting XI. Dayann Methalie’s chance in the Premier League is surely coming sooner rather than later, but the point still stands.
Sunderland were also unable to recruit the left-sided centre back who could offer competition and progression from Omar Alderete’s solid first season, and so the errors they have made in building out from the back are not inexplicable.
It is difficult to criticise Ghisolfi’s decision to keep the core of the side together rather than look for a refresh, because almost everyone on Wearside would at the start of the summer done the same. Whether because of post World Cup fatigue or something else entirely, so many players are just not at the level we saw last season. That was always a possibility, but not easy to predict and certainly not on this scale.
When Sunderland decided not to sell key players, their budget immediately became relatively tight due to SCR rules and UEFA’s even more stringent regulations. It’s worth remembering in the context of this debate that they were one of the lowest spenders in the division this summer and though their spend a year ago was eye-catching, it was not actually vast in a Premier League context when you consider that they essentially signed a new squad from scratch. They are underperforming right now but it is fair for Le Bris to say that it should come as no shock for them to endure some struggle in the Premier League. Their squad costs and investment are at this stage some way off a level that should guarantee a healthy buffer to the bottom three.
This only serves to underline the disappointment that the underdog mentality which served Sunderland so well last season seems to have been lost so quickly. It is easy in a poor run of form to look for easy explanations and answers to sometimes complex problems but you do have to wonder if Sunderland have moved a little too quickly. There has been an explosion in staffing levels around the first-team group and off the pitch, Sunderland over the summer on too many occasions moved without first taking their fans with them. Tom Burwell left his role as interim CEO with no shirt sponsor and with fan relations damaged over a rushed-out membership scheme amongst other things. Did Sunderland lose that sense of what had made them such a force in the two years previous?
The next few weeks are a crossroads moment for Sunderland. Ghisolfi, and indeed Kristjaan Speakman before him, have talked openly about understanding the realities of the next phase of Sunderland’s project. The goal has always been to establish Sunderland as a Premier League force but there has been recognition that there could be ups and downs on the way to that point. The Premier League is so brutal that there has always been an understanding that a bit of bad luck and a tough run can put any team in relegation trouble.
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So will they say that Le Bris has shown his acumen in the past, and back him to turn it around when key players are fit and when they can address some of the issues in the January transfer window? They must also avoid beginning the same cycle of short-term decision making that became the root cause of their collapse through the pyramid a decade ago. Set against this is the very obvious fact that this group of players is capable of more than it is producing right now.
There is soul searching to be done across the board in the days ahead and though Le Bris has endured tough moments on Wearside before, it has never truly felt like his grip on the team has loosened. A sharp turnaround in form is needed and changes simply have to be made on the pitch, but this isn’t a simple fix and the head coach is far from the only one who needs to step up.
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