What Granit Xhaka told Régis Le Bris this week and where the head coach wants Sunderland to improve
Sunderland are looking to build on their excellent start to the Premier League campaign
Régis Le Bris says Sunderland are fully aware that they are far from the finished article as they prepare to face Manchester United this weekend.
Sunderland have made a superb start to the season, confounding many predictions from pundits that they would struggle to make the jump up to the Premier League. Le Bris believes that the team have been able to maintain not just the togetherness but also the self-belief that made them so successful last season. However, a conversation with Granit Xhaka this week left him reassured that no one in the dressing room is getting carried away.
"Yeah, it's still a question and I had this conversation with our captain this week, about this topic," Le Bris said.
"And he told me, the team is really balanced, ambitious, but at the same time, aware of the different elements we have to develop to become a better team and alert, aware of our weaknesses, our strengths. So it's really balanced so far."
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Where Régis Le Bris believes Sunderland can still improve
Sunderland's win over Nottingham Forest was their first on the road this season and while Le Bris is pleased his side have already ticked off a lot of achievements in the opening weeks of the season, he is adamant that there is much more to come.
"The most important thing is the points," he said.
"If we win points, it means that we are competitive in the league and this is our objective. After that it's clear that we started with a specific identity. We want to defend well. We want to defend as a unit, ready to suffer together because this league is really demanding, even with new players and new culture. This is the key point for our squad. And if these foundations are strong, after that you can express yourself with the ball.That wasn't our best part at Nottingham, we definitely can improve this area of our game. But because we don't concede goals it's not easy to find a way to break this defence, we are still alive. And after that you can build confidence, you can build new patterns, you can help the players to get confidence across different games."
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