Exclusive: French expert pinpoints Regis Le Bris' potential undoing at Sunderland | OneFootball

French-based journalist, Luke Entwistle, reveals Regis Le Bris' potential downfall at Sunderland, having watched his slide at FC Lorient.

Highlights

French-based journalist, Luke Entwistle, believes that sacrificing defensive structure and chasing goals could be Regis Le Bris' potential undoing at Sunderland.

With the start of the Championship season on the horizon, Sunderland's new boss, Regis Le Bris, will be looking to stamp his philosophy onto the team. The Black Cats slid down the Championship table following the sackings of Tony Mowbray and Michael Beale, which led to a series of poor performances and a loss of morale within the team.

Despite their fall down the table, statistically, Sunderland had one of the best defences in the Championship last season. Having conceded 54 goals, the Wearsiders had the fifth-best defence in terms of goals conceded.

However, with Le Bris likely to adopt an attacking style of football, Entwistle fears that this approach could have implications at the other end of the pitch.

After Regis Le Bris' second and final season in charge of Lorient, the French club finished 17th and were subsequently relegated to Ligue 2. Although the club scored a respectable 43 goals, the club ranked bottom of the division for goals conceded, with 66.

"He really couldn't keep the goals out," Entwistle stated exclusively to Football League World, when asked about why his Lorient team could not match his intended philosophies.

"He was someone who was really trying to look for solutions, but he just couldn’t find them and switching from a back four to a back three didn’t really pay dividends as he would have liked.

"The issue throughout was that he couldn’t strike a balance within his side, so what you saw was that they didn’t really have any difficulty scoring goals, but they just couldn’t keep them out the other end. Having conceded 66 in 34 league games, it was the worst of any Ligue 1 team last season.

"He struggled with an out-of-possession structure throughout. Even when things were going well with a back four, where the team were much more structured, they were still leaking goals very regularly. They kept very, very few clean sheets in the first half of that season.

"It’s very much the specialty of lower table Ligue 1 teams to sit low, to sit compact, to have a well-organised defence. That’s very much the hallmark of a mid-table, lower Ligue 1 team, but it’s really a hallmark that Lorient never had, and despite trying to change things, change the formation, the root issues of their failings were never fully addressed."

Chasing goals could prove costly for Sunderland

Under Mowbray, Sunderland had a distinct attacking, free-flowing style of play, which was pleasing on the eye. That style was lost following Mowbray's sacking, and the Wearsiders looked lost under Beale and caretaker boss, Mike Dodds.

It appears that Le Bris will aim to get Sunderland back to the style of play which saw them succeed during their first season back in the Championship. However, the Black Cats do not possess the same qualities they had back then, with Amad Diallo, Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms no longer at the club.

"He does provide an attacking form of football, a very exciting attacking form of football," Entwistle stated, when asked about what Sunderland fans can expect from Le Bris.

"He wasn’t necessarily the most pragmatic of coaches. He was maybe quite idealistic in his philosophy, in wanting to be attacking, in wanting to be positive. Ultimately, it was a playing style for which he paid in the end, because if you can’t stop leaking goals, it doesn’t really matter how many you score. You are always going to find yourself in trouble in Ligue 1.

"If he can get them consistently providing that attacking football, then it will be exciting. They’ll ship goals, but they will be scoring plenty too.

"Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that enough at Lorient, but a team like Sunderland, who are potentially more well-placed in their own division, could reap rewards and there are definitely certain logics surrounding the appointment."

Although Le Bris was relegated with Lorient last season, there were many factors which contributed to his demise. The summer before their relegation, it was reported that the Frenchman had reached an agreement to manage Ligue 1 rivals OGC Nice, but the move never materialised. There were several other factors that led to Lorient's downfall, which were out of his hands.

At Sunderland, he will be given every opportunity to succeed, but fans will hope that he has learned from the mistakes that paved the way for Lorient's first relegation since 2017. If history repeats itself, then these mistakes could again be his downfall.

Attacking football will be pleasing on the eye at the Stadium of Light, but will only prove fruitful if it can bring results for the Black Cats.