It’s incredibly early days, but much has been made of the rather fortunate (on paper) start to life back in the top flight that the fixture list has afforded Régis Le Bris and his side, so make no bones about it — the Lads will be targeting this game as a massive opportunity to collect three more points.
The Opposition
The same, however, can be said of Brentford, who themselves have been tipped for the drop this season and have undergone a summer of immense change.
Thomas Frank, who spent seven years in charge in West
London, departed with the best wishes of everyone to take over at Tottenham Hotspur, whilst last season’s top scorer Bryan Mbeumo headed off for Manchester United. First team captain Christian Nørgaard left to join Arsenal, and goalkeeper Mark Flekken is now with Bayer Leverkusen. And whilst the club seems determined to hang on to Yoanne Wissa, he’s currently away from the first team due to expressing his desire to leave and join N*wcastle, who thus far have been unsuccessful in their attempts to prise him away from the Gtech Community Stadium.
Replacing Frank, to the surprise of everyone, was Keith Andrews, who last time I had heard his name was just a pundit doing EFL games on Sky Sports. Whoever is in charge at Brentford obviously liked what they saw from him on the big screen, and after a short stint as set-piece coach he was earmarked to be the next man in charge — a bold and incredibly brave decision given just how difficult life in the Premier League actually is. Andrews, who has no previous managerial experience, was a half-decent EFL midfielder in his day and played 35 times for the Republic of Ireland, so it remains to be seen if he’ll carry on the fine work of his predecessor or will be a complete disaster — and, I don’t know about you, but for Sunderland’s sake I’m hoping it’s the latter.
The Bees have won one of their two games so far in the league, winning last weekend and keeping a clean sheet against Aston Villa, having been battered away at Forest on the opening weekend of the Premier League season. They followed that victory over the Villans with a handy win against Bournemouth in the League Cup during the week, so they will be coming into this game with a lot of confidence, having won and kept clean sheets back-to-back.
In their squad is a familiar face, and someone who in another life could have been lining up for Sunderland and not against us this afternoon. Jordan Henderson — no longer the fresh-faced young whippersnapper who once lit up the Stadium of Light as a teenager, but a 35-year-old wily veteran whose best days may be behind him — is determined to prove himself all over again in the Premier League in a bid to make Thomas Tuchel’s squad for next year’s World Cup in North America. You can imagine he’ll also be hoping to show Sunderland’s hierarchy a thing or two given it seems we decided against the option of bringing him home for one last hurrah, but that’s a different story for another day.
In my chat with journalist Sam Tabuteau, which can be heard on yesterday’s episode of Haway The Podcast [click here to listen], we heard about how Brentford like to play on the counter-attack, are happy to surrender possession, and will utilise their speed and fitness in an attempt to cut us open.
Doesn’t that all sound familiar? It’s an intriguing clash of styles and one that I’m looking forward to witnessing. Under Le Bris, Sunderland generally don’t fare too well when there’s an expectation for us to be the team in control, but we have far better players now than we’ve ever had in the last two years, and with the likes of Granit Xhaka in midfield we’ve got to try and control the game and take Brentford apart through the middle of the pitch.
Sam admitted that this would be the best approach to bring the Bees to their knees, so let’s see what happens.
How Are Sunderland Shaping Up?
It’s been an interesting week or so on Wearside, and how we’ll react to losing away at Burnley last weekend brings great intrigue.
You’ve got to hope that, like against West Ham, the crowd and atmosphere will make a huge difference and will be a deciding factor in whether or not we win. Another sold-out home crowd is expected, and it cannot be understated just how pivotal the support of the fans inside the stadium changed the flow of the match and helped to swing things back in our favour.
Despite going out of the cup on penalties in midweek, having fielded a second-string side, I think there were plenty of positives to take, particularly from the second half, and Régis Le Bris will have much to ponder when it comes to selecting his starting eleven later this afternoon.
Dan Ballard is out until after the international break, and there’s still no sign of Jhon Lucumi, so there’s an opportunity for Nordi Mukiele to make his Premier League debut — perhaps alongside either Jenson Seelt or Omar Alderete. If Mukiele isn’t yet ready, you’d imagine that it’ll be Alderete and Seelt starting together.
There are also question marks over the midfield — will we see Enzo Le Fee get his first start? — and in attack, where Eliezer Mayenda is not a complete certainty up top, and with both Wilson Isidor and Marc Guiu pushing for starts having both scored goals for the club in the last seven days.
These are nice problems to have, though, and whilst I don’t envy Le Bris in having to upset very good players who he simply cannot find a place for, I’d much rather this be the situation instead of having a load of dross to pick from.
Predictions
Hopefully the humbling we received at the hands of Burnley last weekend was a lesson to us all that there are no terrible teams at this level, and we certainly cannot just rock up to games expecting to win. Even the teams that are tipped to struggle have good players and are capable of turning in top performances on their day, and we have to be guarded against that, and the fact that Brentford will be buoyed by two good results this week.
For me, Sunderland’s success in this game hinges on winning the midfield battle. Granit Xhaka has been fine since he came in, but we’ve not seen him truly run the game in either of our last two Premier League performances, so if we’re going to win this afternoon, he’s going to have to win that battle against another experienced competitor in Jordan Henderson — and I fancy him to do just that. I actually think facing off against a player he’s met countless times in big games between Liverpool and Arsenal will give this battle some extra edge, and both men will be relishing the opportunity to roll back the years and show everyone who is boss.
I’d be happy with a point, but I’m still tipping us to win — I fancy a 2-1 victory, with Trai Hume and Wilson Isidor getting on the scoresheet for the Lads in red and white. Haway!
