Sunderland started sluggishly but ended strongly during Monday’s draw with Everton, coming from behind for the fourth time this season to pick up points. On reflection, it was a good point overall but there was a nagging sense that given our second half dominance, perhaps we could’ve taken all three.
The draw moved us back up into the Champions League places ahead of our top-of-the-table clash (you better believe I’m milking it) with Arsenal on Saturday. The match at the Stadium of Light will be our toughest
test of the season so far, and the attitude of the players and our owner couldn’t be more positive ahead of the game.
Before Everton, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus spoke to Sky Sports about the plans for January and how, if we’re in a similar position, the type of signings we target will reflect this. He mentioned the words “top ten finish” which is exciting to hear, but given this club now operates, it wouldn’t be surprising if secretly, they’re deadly serious.
We’re currently preparing for all scenarios, but we’ve been doing that since the summer.
Hopefully, we’ll be going into the January window with a top ten finish in mind, and we will prepare and execute the transfer window to give us the best chance.
Praise for Régis Le Bris was also forthcoming, with the head coach’s well-acknowledged level of meticulous detail being lauded by Dreyfus — just don’t shout too loudly about him yet, Kyril? This positive attitude and a concerted effort to keep improving and believing we can go to the top is still so refreshing. It’s also filtered down to the players and this winning mentality is hopefully infectious.
At full time, several players seemed gutted at the draw and captain Granit Xhaka — who’s quickly becoming the best midfielder most of us have seen pull on a red and white shirt — typified the winning mentality when he spoke to Sky Sports.
He and the other players accepted that we weren’t good enough and that more needs to be done. We’re fourth in the Premier League and have players desperate to keep improving. It’s the best mentality I’ve ever seen in a Sunderland squad, and it’s so refreshing.
Here’s snippet of what Xhaka said:
We lost the three points today in the first 20, 25 minutes, in my opinion.
Yesterday’s training was not our best, and we started today like we finished training. We had that conversation with each other, that at this level, we need to show our standards every day.
Xhaka wasn’t the only unhappy one, with Enzo Le Fée echoing this sentiment and offering a glimpse into what was said at the interval by Le Bris.
We can’t be happy with this point because we lost our three points the first thirty minutes. I don’t know why we were so bad with the ball.
At half time, Régis reminded us of our standards and what he expects from us. The second half was our standard. Our football.
Three games unbeaten and just two defeats in our opening ten games makes for amazing reading but this squad wants more, and with a relentless footballing obsessive as head coach, many of these players still have a lot of potential to tap into.
In the summer, the idea of us being in the top four with eighteen points on the board ahead of the visit of Arsenal would’ve seemed like something from deep within the mind of the most optimistic Sunderland fan in existence.
Yet in the here and now, we can look back at how deserving we’ve been of every point and how a visit from the best team in the country at the moment will be something everyone at the club will relish rather than fear.
