The domestic season restarts for Sunderland with a challenging home test against Brighton. Brighton were, of course, one of only four teams to beat us at the Stadium of Light last season and have started this season excellently.
Led by the young, pragmatic German Fabian Hurzeler, they are coming into this off the back of two excellent outings in their last two league games. They hammered Coventry away from home 5-0 and also took Arsenal to the sword in their last game before the break with a 3-0 battering
that could have easily been 5 or 6. They also came from behind away to Man United in the EFL Cup, too, and they will be looking to take that confidence into Saturday.
Similar to ourselves, Brighton operate a ‘moneyball’, data-driven recruitment process led by owner Tony Bloom, with the average age of their squad being 25.6. They have experienced operators at this level in Fedi Kadiloglu, Pascal Struijk, Bart Verbruggen and Pascal Gross, who has shown no signs of slowing down at 35 and seems to be ageing like a fine wine.
He is easily their most instrumental player and has started the season excellently, with 3 goals and 3 assists, and he ran the show against Arsenal. Their excellent start has them third in the table, only 5 points off leaders Manchester City.
A young team that plays with aggression and intensity, and sounds a lot like us, which should make for a very good matchup for the neutral and an interesting tactical battle between two very pragmatic coaches.
What makes this even more interesting is that both teams are having to manage hectic league schedules alongside European football on Thursday nights, and with Sunderland having injury concerns after the international break, the line-ups will make for interesting reading at 13:45 on Saturday.
The schedule doesn’t ease up, and Sunderland follow this up with 3 away days in a 7-day period, and they couldn’t be any more demanding.
Sunderland will first travel to Torreense. For those who do not know much about Torreense, what they did last season to achieve European football is almost identical to what we did in 1973. A Portuguese second-division side that qualified for Europe for the first time in their history by winning the Portuguese domestic cup.
It would not be surprising to see more Mackems in the stadium for this game than home supporters. Torreense only average around 1,500 supporters for home games and, due to UEFA regulations, are actually having to play their home games away from home.
This game will be played at the Estádio Dr Magalhães Pessoa Stadium in Leiria, with a capacity of 24,000. This will, of course, make for a bit of a logistical nightmare for the travelling Red and White Army.
They should not be taken lightly, however. They will hardly have thought that competing in Europe was a realistic possibility at the start of last season and will be relishing every minute.
They also won their first game in the Europa League away to Norwegian side Lillestrom and, buoyed by a home crowd, they could very easily spring a surprise and catch us off guard. I am sure Régis will have a game plan, and the leaders within the squad will play their part in ensuring that doesn’t leave us red-faced at full-time.
The fixture scheduling is so demanding that there are whispers of the club setting up a training camp in Portugal to help maximise their preparation for this game, and then leaving their training camp to immediately fly to Bournemouth on the following Sunday.
For a lot of the squad, this will be a new experience, but we have plenty of leaders and plenty of experience of these demanding schedules. Meunier, Xhaka, Sadiki, Danso, Fofana and Reinildo all have a wealth of experience playing demanding European games during the week and immediately turning their attention to domestic action.
Of course, at this level, every game is going to be a test, but what makes the Bournemouth game so challenging is the travelling on either side of the game, and Bournemouth themselves are a very tidy outfit.
They themselves have qualified for Europe for the first time in their history, which must have seemed a world away when they were on the brink of going bust at the bottom of League Two in 2008. It really is quite remarkable that a club of Bournemouth’s size has been able to regularly keep themselves well out of relegation and then qualify for Europe with such a small budget.
The man who led them to Europe for the first time in their history has since jumped ship to Liverpool and has not yet done a lot to convince Liverpool supporters he is an upgrade on Arne Slot, and they now have the German Marco Rose at the helm.
They are currently just outside of the relegation zone and without a win all season, despite getting off the mark in Europe away to Real Sociedad. The German is vastly experienced and a product of the Red Bull production line of managers. He was handpicked by Andoni Iraola as a replacement but has yet to match the expectation that followed his departure.
They have also conceded 4 goals after the 80th minute in 3 of their opening 5 league games, with 3 of those 5 games being draws.
After a very controversial performance from Jarred Gillett, where we were robbed of a blatant early penalty and a red card for Bournemouth’s Tyler Adams, the lads will likely have extra motivation to go one better than our 1-1 draw in late February.
A third away game in 7 days sees us take on Polish outfit Lech Poznań. This is likely to be another test of character for the lads, with an intimidating and hostile home atmosphere expected to greet them.
Poznań currently sit third in the Polish First Division after 8 games, and top scorer Allahyar Sayyadmanesh, formerly of Hull City, will certainly be one to watch.
Régis’ team selection will be interesting as he tries to keep everyone topped up with minutes whilst also playing a team that he believes is strong enough to get the job done in Poland.
Something that will certainly pose a challenge for Régis is having such a short turnaround time between games and having to adapt his preparation to maximise the 3 or 4 days between games, whereas he is used to having 5 or 6 days between games to prepare.
We then welcome the Sky cameras to the SoL for a home game against Leeds United.
The Whites have recruited impressively over the summer and, after a mid-season rejuvenation under Daniel Farke last season, are being tipped as an outsider for a European spot after a very good start to this season.
They are currently unbeaten in the league, and an intense and exciting Leeds will look to cause a stir in front of the cameras. I would not be surprised to see wholesale changes between this and the Poznań game.
Our two contests with Leeds were both tightly fought, and the win at Elland Road under the lights secured us 40 points and gave us a great springboard to go and kick on for a finish in the European places.
This will be another test for Régis to see how well he can manage the squad, as well as find the edge over a very good Leeds team led by a very good manager.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin has continued his fine form from last season with 3 goals in 5 games, and this has caught the eye of Thomas Tuchel, who has rewarded him with a fresh England cap against Spain.
Jayden Bogle and Anton Stach are key cogs in the Leeds system, too, and pose a goal-scoring threat.
A very brief chance to catch our breath comes with a League Cup fixture at home to Brentford, and we finally have some consecutive home games after nearly 2 weeks of travelling.
A cup run is always nice and is a great way to utilise some of the fringe players who need minutes, and this is exactly how I imagine Régis will approach the Brentford game.
Brentford have a much nicer fixture schedule and will have the luxury of having the option to field a much stronger team than we are likely to put out.
This is where Régis’ squad management will be key, as if he is able to balance everyone’s minutes to keep them fit and also allow some of the newer lads to gel in with the squad, we are likely to see a stronger and more coherent performance from the ‘fringe’ players.
The European games will allow us to rotate to an extent to help accommodate this; either side of the Europa League games, we will play on the following Sunday.
However, I don’t think it will be a surprise to see our cup run come to a close here purely due to us having other priorities in Europe and the league at this point of the season, and this will mean one less game to play.
An away game to Coventry, with Zagreb at home in the Europa League before a home tie against Chelsea, takes us into the international break.
Coventry used to be a team we feared in League One and the Championship, but since that play-off semi-final victory and how both teams’ fortunes have panned out since, we should be seen as favourites for this.
Granted, they have had quite a harsh start provided by the fixture computer, but up until their win against Nottingham Forest, they have looked pretty pathetic.
Any betting man will have money on Ellis Simms coming back and haunting us, and we really should be looking to win this comfortably, even amidst the fixture build-up and the fatigue that will well and truly have set in at this point.
Chelsea were one of a handful of teams we took 6 points off, and granted, they were a bit of a basket case last season, but now seem to be heading somewhere in the direction you’d expect them to be.
Rogers, Palmer and João Pedro is a front three good enough for any team in the top six and have carved teams apart in Chelsea’s opening games.
This will probably be our toughest test. They do look extremely vulnerable at the back and have conceded a lot of goals, too, with a stuttering start leaving them in 10th as we go into this round of fixtures.
An intriguing subplot is, of course, the brief flirtation of Alonso and Xhaka over the summer, where a move to Chelsea looked nailed on for Xhaka.
Although this ultimately fell through after a pathetic attempt from Chelsea to attract Xhaka, there is still an incredible amount of respect between Alonso and Xhaka.
Xhaka probably had the best spell of his career at Leverkusen and probably played his best football, too, and that will add to the spectacle in front of the Sky cameras, too.
All in all, a very intense schedule awaits.
Whilst this will be superb for the fans to have a game every 3 or 4 days to go to, this may be the most challenging part of Régis Le Bris’ Sunderland career so far.
Having to balance the workload of a squad whilst being competitive across three different competitions and only having two or three days to prepare for each game will certainly make Le Bris show us what he is made of.
We have a squad deep with quality, with many experienced European operators and leaders, as well as serial winners like Thomas Meunier and Xhaka, who have shared dressing rooms with some of the world’s best for the entirety of their careers.
One thing is for sure: the next month will certainly not be boring.
