Within the trendy, money-driven, excessive stakes, glitz-and-glamour world of the Premier League, it’s seldom sufficient for a head coach or a supervisor to simply be a head coach or a supervisor, and because the nature of the sport that all of us love has developed, so too have the calls for positioned those that are lucky sufficient to land the highest job at one of many twenty massive gamers.
With the vast majority of prime flight squads being comprised of a litany of fascinating, mercurially proficient and sophisticated characters, bosses usually need to be poets, philosophers, tacticians, motivators, unifiers and sometimes United Nations-grade diplomats, significantly when occasions get robust and the sensation on the terraces is lower than harmonious.
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Some — reminiscent of Pep Guardiola and his former assistant Mikel Arteta — have introduced a much more theatrical strategy to prime flight administration, with touchline histrionics, cryptic exchanges with the media and offbeat motivational ways all a part of their schtick, however on the pink and white entrance, issues are solely totally different and at present not like something we’ve ever actually seen at Sunderland.
Purely from an goal perspective, Régis Le Bris can’t be in comparison with some other boss who’s occupied the Sunderland hotseat — actually throughout my time as a fan and maybe many different supporters, too. This isn’t a case of getting carried away after such an encouraging begin, however it’s provably true that Le Bris — ever since his arrival in the summertime of 2024 — has represented one thing fully totally different as our upward trajectory has gathered tempo.
Charming, worldly, insightful and totally grounded, he’s shattered perceived knowledge about what it truly takes to thrive within the Stadium of Mild hotseat, and regardless of the long-running acceptance that with the intention to succeed at our membership, you wanted to be an abrasive, no-nonsense character within the mould of Peter Reid, Roy Keane and Sam Allardyce, the unflappable Frenchman has began to change that notion — which is not any imply feat.
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Reid, Keane and Allardyce had been supreme motivators; hard-bitten characters who constructed a rapport with the fanbase due to their grounded natures and the truth that their sides would give the whole lot in pursuit of victory. Work price and preventing spirit are key tenets of Le Bris’ strategy, however there’s additionally a lot extra to Sunderland beneath him.
Intricacy, fluidity and adaptableness are key elements of the Le Bris superb, and to make the grade on this staff, possessing a superb engine or sharp instincts in entrance of objective isn’t sufficient by itself. Witness the sheer versatility of lots of Sunderland’s frontline gamers and also you’ll see what I imply. This can be a extremely developed staff enjoying a really superior, streetwise model of soccer, and Le Bris is the person on the very coronary heart of the machine.
I can’t recall a Sunderland supervisor of the previous three a long time who’s applied such a deep-seated footballing philosophy at our membership — and nor can I call to mind a Lads’ boss who’s succeeded in moulding such a various group of people right into a singularly cohesive unit— a feat achieved off a fairly brief run up, it have to be stated.
In fact, Le Bris isn’t solely averse to shows of uncooked emotion, as we’ve seen frequently throughout a memorable 2025, however that’s not his defining attribute. He clearly feels the facility of the Stadium of Mild and the raucous backing of our followers on the highway, however you at all times get a way that when it issues, he’s in full management.
As Sunderland supporters, we’ve developed a superb intuition for when gamers are absolutely behind their boss and are absolutely invested in his imaginative and prescient. That’s actually the case proper now, and it’s performed an enormous position in our promising begin to 2025/2026.
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Though in some ways he’s damaged the mould for Sunderland bosses within the Premier League, one factor Le Bris actually shares with Reid, Keane and Allardyce is presence.
He instructions the touchline throughout matches, conducts effortlessly managed media conferences and I believe he’s a vigorous presence on the coaching floor — the form of head coach who’ll preserve the gamers on their toes and be sure that nothing is left to likelihood in terms of making ready his costs for video games. Submit-Chelsea, French soccer skilled Julien Laurens touched on Le Bris’ stellar popularity in his homeland, and it’s changing into simpler to see why he was so extremely rated earlier than touchdown on Wearside.
He delivered promotion in probably the most memorable means final season; he’s taken to prime flight administration with spectacular aptitude, and he’s gained a spot within the affections of the supporters into the discount.
Right here’s hoping that the Le Bris/Sunderland story nonetheless has many chapters to unfold. This man, if given time and ample sources, actually may take our membership into uncharted territory — and that’s very thrilling.