In May 2024, Sunderland finished a disappointing season in 16th place in the Championship, slumping to a 2-0 home defeat against Sheffield Wednesday.
At this point, we’d been without a permanent head coach since mid-February, when Michael Beale was sacked. Mike Dodds was at the helm for the final third of the campaign, which fizzled out pretty quickly.
The wait for a new full-time boss went on for another month after the season ended, and was only brought to an end on 22 June when Régis Le Bris signed
on the dotted line. You would have been hard-pressed to find many Sunderland fans who knew much about him before he made the move.
Whilst there were some groans from within the fanbase, we needed to trust the board. This was tough given the season we’d just had, but patience has certainly been a virtue in this instance – and in many others with SAFC in recent years.
The ride we’ve been on in the last 12 and a bit months, from the dramatic play-off semi-final win against Coventry to defeating Chelsea and securing a Europa League spot, has been nothing short of incredible.
We’ve had so many big moments in that time; I could list them, but we all know what I’m talking about. A part of each one of these is our head coach, who becomes the first manager since Steve Bruce to be in charge for two full seasons – a stat which will never not be at least slightly humorous when you think of how things fell apart towards the end in that scenario.
A question that has been asked a lot in the weeks since the Chelsea win is: ‘Is this Sunderland’s greatest ever season?’
The answer may be heavily dictated by age, but as someone who is nearly 30 and only started watching the Lads in 2003, for me this is an easy answer. Absolutely yes – and a man who has been instrumental in this is our calculating French gaffer with a cool, calm and collected demeanour.
He is comfortably my favourite ever Sunderland boss, and is exactly the sort of head coach we didn’t even realise we needed. For years, the idea of the right person for this role was someone who wore his heart on his sleeve and was outspoken.
RLB keeps everyone grounded and is, let’s be honest, a quiet genius for the work he’s done with us in the last 24 months.
Looking back at Régis’ first interview as Sunderland boss, he gave some words which have since gone on to feel pretty significant.
In June 2024, RLB said: “I recognise the potential of our team, a group that has seen both successes and more difficult times.
“Our journey together has only just begun, and I am ambitious about what we can achieve.
“I want us to bring joy to our fans, not only through results, but also through our style of play, and I’m convinced that with commitment and hard work, we can write an exciting new chapter.”
It’s fair to say that he has brought joy to us fans and that we have most certainly written this exciting new chapter.
With Le Bris signing a new contract last year, it would be nice to think another new chapter – with Europe as a storyline – won’t be the last we see of Régis in a Sunderland tracksuit on the touchline.
“We won’t play like Guardiola or De Zerbi, because we are Sunderland and I’m Régis Le Bris” is my favourite line from him, and it sums up last season perfectly.
We came up to the Premier League and forged our own identity, and in a league full of big teams and bigger personalities, we have become a club that knows what it’s doing and where it wants to go.
