It’s extremely early days, however a lot has been manufactured from the slightly lucky (on paper) begin to life again within the prime flight that the fixture record has afforded Régis Le Bris and his aspect, so make no bones about it — the Lads shall be focusing on this recreation as a large alternative to gather three extra factors.
The Opposition
The identical, nevertheless, may be stated of Brentford, who themselves have been tipped for the drop this season and have undergone a summer time of immense change.
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Thomas Frank, who spent seven years in cost in West London, departed with one of the best needs of everybody to take over at Tottenham Hotspur, while final season’s prime scorer Bryan Mbeumo headed off for Manchester United. First workforce captain Christian Nørgaard left to affix Arsenal, and goalkeeper Mark Flekken is now with Bayer Leverkusen. And while the membership appears decided to hold on to Yoanne Wissa, he’s at the moment away from the primary workforce because of expressing his need to depart and be a part of N*wcastle, who to date have been unsuccessful of their makes an attempt to prise him away from the Gtech Group Stadium.
Changing Frank, to the shock of everybody, was Keith Andrews, who final time I had heard his title was only a pundit doing EFL video games on Sky Sports activities. Whoever is in cost at Brentford clearly favored what they noticed from him on the large display screen, and after a brief stint as set-piece coach he was earmarked to be the subsequent man in cost — a daring and extremely courageous choice given simply how tough life within the Premier League truly is. Andrews, who has no earlier managerial expertise, was a half-decent EFL midfielder in his day and performed 35 occasions for the Republic of Eire, so it stays to be seen if he’ll stick with it the fantastic work of his predecessor or shall be an entire catastrophe — and, I don’t find out about you, however for Sunderland’s sake I’m hoping it’s the latter.
The Bees have received certainly one of their two video games thus far within the league, profitable final weekend and preserving a clear sheet in opposition to Aston Villa, having been battered away at Forest on the opening weekend of the Premier League season. They adopted that victory over the Villans with a helpful win in opposition to Bournemouth within the League Cup in the course of the week, so they are going to be coming into this recreation with a whole lot of confidence, having received and saved clear sheets back-to-back.
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Of their squad is a well-recognized face, and somebody who in one other life might have been lining up for Sunderland and never in opposition to us this afternoon. Jordan Henderson — not the fresh-faced younger whippersnapper who as soon as lit up the Stadium of Gentle as a youngster, however a 35-year-old wily veteran whose greatest days could also be behind him — is set to show himself once more within the Premier League in a bid to make Thomas Tuchel’s squad for subsequent yr’s World Cup in North America. You may think about he’ll even be hoping to indicate Sunderland’s hierarchy a factor or two given it appears we determined in opposition to the choice of bringing him residence for one final hurrah, however that’s a distinct story for one more day.
In my chat with journalist Sam Tabuteau, we heard about how Brentford prefer to play on the counter-attack, are blissful to give up possession, and can utilise their velocity and health in an try to chop us open.
Doesn’t that every one sound acquainted? It’s an intriguing conflict of types and one which I’m trying ahead to witnessing. Beneath Le Bris, Sunderland usually don’t fare too properly when there’s an expectation for us to be the workforce in management, however now we have much better gamers now than we’ve ever had within the final two years, and with the likes of Granit Xhaka in midfield we’ve received to attempt to management the sport and take Brentford aside by way of the center of the pitch.
Sam admitted that this might be one of the best strategy to convey the Bees to their knees, so let’s see what occurs.
It’s been an fascinating week or so on Wearside, and the way we’ll react to dropping away at Burnley final weekend brings nice intrigue.
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You’ve received to hope that, like in opposition to West Ham, the gang and environment will make an enormous distinction and shall be a deciding consider whether or not or not we win. One other sold-out residence crowd is anticipated, and it can’t be understated simply how pivotal the assist of the followers contained in the stadium modified the circulation of the match and helped to swing issues again in our favour.
Regardless of going out of the cup on penalties in midweek, having fielded a second-string aspect, I believe there have been loads of positives to take, notably from the second half, and Régis Le Bris could have a lot to ponder relating to deciding on his beginning eleven later this afternoon.
Dan Ballard is out till after the worldwide break, and there’s nonetheless no signal of Jhon Lucumi, so there’s a chance for Nordi Mukiele to make his Premier League debut — maybe alongside both Jenson Seelt or Omar Alderete. If Mukiele isn’t but prepared, you’d think about that it’ll be Alderete and Seelt beginning collectively.
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There are additionally query marks over the midfield — will we see Enzo Le Payment get his first begin? — and in assault, the place Eliezer Mayenda will not be an entire certainty up prime, and with each Wilson Isidor and Marc Guiu pushing for begins having each scored objectives for the membership within the final seven days.
These are good issues to have, although, and while I don’t envy Le Bris in having to upset excellent gamers who he merely can not discover a place for, I’d a lot slightly this be the scenario as an alternative of getting a load of dross to choose from.
Hopefully the humbling we obtained by the hands of Burnley final weekend was a lesson to us all that there are not any horrible groups at this stage, and we definitely can not simply rock as much as video games anticipating to win. Even the groups which might be tipped to wrestle have good gamers and are able to delivering prime performances on their day, and now we have to be guarded in opposition to that, and the truth that Brentford shall be buoyed by two good outcomes this week.
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For me, Sunderland’s success on this recreation hinges on profitable the midfield battle. Granit Xhaka has been fantastic since he got here in, however we’ve not seen him actually run the sport in both of our final two Premier League performances, so if we’re going to win this afternoon, he’s going to should win that battle in opposition to one other skilled competitor in Jordan Henderson — and I fancy him to do exactly that. I truly assume dealing with off in opposition to a participant he’s met numerous occasions in large video games between Liverpool and Arsenal will give this battle some further edge, and each males shall be relishing the chance to roll again the years and present everybody who’s boss.
I’d be pleased with some extent, however I’m nonetheless tipping us to win — I fancy a 2-1 victory, with Trai Hume and Wilson Isidor getting on the scoresheet for the Lads in pink and white. Haway!
