Dear Roker Report,
I last wrote in over five years ago and thought long and hard about writing again after making a vow not to do so then. However, I was so disappointed and saddened last week to hear Martin proposing that Régis Le Bris should be sacked before the Chelsea game. Let me try to explain.
My background
I’m 82 years of age, having been an active supporter since 1955, and have experienced many ups and even more downs during that time. I come from a family of Sunderland fans. My grandfather was one of the 75,118
fans who attended the FA Cup match against Derby County on 8 March 1933. My father took a day off work to join me in 1973 when we beat our fiercest rivals, ”Dirty” Leeds United, against all the odds.
Some of my best memories came after times when we were up against it, and four games stand out, with two against the team we beat on Sunday – Chelsea.
10 September 1955: The only time we’ve won after being 3-0 down, winning 4-3 against Chelsea, the reigning champions. Len Shackleton was the star that day.
18 May 1962: All we had to do was take a draw against Chelsea at home to win promotion. Chelsea’s manager, Tommy Docherty, got his team to cynically kick us off the park, and Tommy Harmer got a lucky deflection to give them a 1-0 win. We went on to win promotion the following year with ”Dirty” Leeds United.
16 December 1972: Along with a paltry crowd of 11,523, I watched us scrape a 0-0 draw against Preston North End. Five months later, we beat Leeds at Wembley with my heroes Monty, Watson, Hughes and Tueart.
25 May 1998: We lost at Wembley to Charlton Athletic, 4-4 and 7-6 on penalties. The next season, we won the Championship with a record points tally.
The point of all this is to emphasise the importance of supporting our dear team, even during the darkest of days. We need perspective and objectivity from our Roker Report pundits, and not negativity, which gets you nowhere, Martin.
Let’s, for a second, look at Régis’ record. From a previous position of 16th in the Championship, with the same players, he got us to the play-offs. Whilst, again, one or two were asking for RLB to go after we lost the last five league games, Régis masterminded the semi-final games against ”Frank Lampard’s” Coventry City (with memories of Jimmy Hill’s late kick-off in 1977 relegating us). RLB then got us to recover in the second half at Wembley and secure promotion. A double against Newcastle the following season and seventh place, which was our best position in the top division since 1955.
I confess to having tears in my eyes at the AZ Alkmaar match, remembering attending my last European game against Sporting Lisbon in 1973. My dad would have been proud!
Apart from his achievements with us over two years, Régis is also a very decent man. Self-effacing and modest, with no ego unlike many other managers. I can’t recall him ever criticising referees or players, and he accepts responsibility. In my view, he is the best manager we’ve had in my lifetime, with Peter Reid a close second.
This season, he has been fighting on three fronts – the Europa League, the League Cup and a demanding set of league games – without Ballard and, at times, Brobbey and Isidor. He has also been given the task of slowly integrating some young lads into the team, and in some cases, players who do not speak English.
Our record at present is six wins, three draws and seven defeats (three against Arsenal, Man City and a very experienced European team in Zagreb).
I suggest your call for Le Bris to be sacked last week, Martin, was premature and a knee-jerk reaction to Coventry, without pausing or giving much thought to his replacement or the impact on players, especially Le Fée, who undoubtedly were playing for him on Sunday.
It would be interesting to know now if you hold the same view?
Apologies for the long-winded response.
SUNDERLAND ‘TIL I DIE
Colin Ions
Editor’s note [Martin]: Thanks for your email Colin, we always appreciate it. Get ready for a long winded reply! My view on Le Bris is I think he’s done brilliantly for us in his two and a half years here, and he’s been part of a group of people who’ve given us a couple of the best seasons we’ve ever had. I want him to be even more successful here – nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see a statue of Regis Le Bris alongside Bob Stokoe one day.
Going into the Chelsea game, I said I think it could be time the club made a change to turn the season around. It might be semantics, but I don’t recall saying definitively, ‘Le Bris must be sacked’ – I did say we were in the territory of a change of manager being ‘a risk the board almost need to take’. Those sentiments are two sides to the same coin, I think there’s a little bit of nuance between them.
Our overall record this season including cups is OK, but unfortunately the Premier League is the be-all and end-all for the club. Five points from nine league games isn’t just relegation form, it’s going down without a whimper form, and in my view the performances against Bournemouth, Brighton, Coventry and the first half against Zagreb simply weren’t that of a side who looked like they could stay up. Individually, I believe the majority of players we have are more than capable of playing successfully in the Premier League.
I also said at the end of the Zagreb pod that the ideal scenario was that Le Bris stays in charge and we win against Chelsea – and that then sets us up to go on a great run after the international break. I did doubt whether he could do it – I’ve done a lot of research into his second season at Lorient which went terribly and ended with their relegation. What happened there does concern me, and I’d be lying if I said those doubts still didn’t remain. It’s interesting in that he seems to be doing the opposite of what he did there to try to rectify things – i.e not changing shape / personnel / approach.
I do think Le Bris needed a result and a performance on Sunday, and thankfully he got it. Does one game allay any concerns about our form this season, about our ability to break teams down, score from open play, switching tactics, giving young players a chance when they’ve earned one, and being robust defensively? Not really. It did prove the players are still ‘in’ it though, which was reassuring after the performances of the previous weeks.
Did we (finally) get a bit of luck on Sunday? Maybe – it’s a game that could have gone either way, and do we have the same game without Ahoka on the field? I do wonder whether that injury to Xhaka could be Le Bris’s Bertschin / Gates moment, as it forced his hand to some extent. Sometimes those things happen.
The reality is that to stay up we’re going to have to break down and beat mid-lower table teams at home and away on at least a semi regular basis, so we’re going to need to figure out how to do that. Those games will be very different compared to what we needed on Sunday. We have 28 league games left and need to win at least 10 (another 2 against Newcastle would be nice!) and get a few draws here and there to stay up.
Relegation with this squad after everything we’ve achieved over the past five seasons would perhaps be the biggest missed opportunity in the history of the club – therefore, ultimately, the club will do whatever it takes to prevent that happening.
Again, thanks for getting in touch and I hope I’ve given some you some rationale here behind my thinking. Please know I desperately hope Regis and the players can build on Sunday, and by the time the daffodils are blooming we are well away from the relegation zone and looking forward to Europa League knock outs and a comfortable midtable finish – after all, that’s what we all want!
Dear Roker Report,
I hope that Régis gives Ahoka more starts in the first team after his display against Chelsea. I hope he starts after the international break against Aston Villa. He’s the best we’ve had in a long time.
Ian Frame
Editor’s note [Martin]: Thanks for getting in touch Ian. I thought Ahoka was exceptional on Sunday and added a lot to our midfield. It’s puzzled me why we’ve not seen more of him already given his cup and Europa League performances, but he’s really put a marker down and deserves to keep his place. We’re waiting on news of Xhaka’s injury of course, and if Xhaka’s fit the prospect of the two of them playing in midfield together is interesting – I think Ahoka could take some of the burden from Xhaka and they could complement each other well.
