In Phil Smith’s (of The Sunderland Echo) tremendous interview with Sunderland director of football Florent Ghisolfi, he states that his first objective was to preserve the quality that had got the team promoted last season and continue it throughout the nascent Premier League season.
That quality is mentality, and the synonyms were bandied with gleeful abandon in Sky Sports’ post-match coverage of Saturday’s Arsenal game — character, resilience, fortitude. Each of these words has been used to describe
this Sunderland team under head coach Régis Le Bris.
After the playoff semi-final win over Coventry City, Le Bris addressed the dressing room and said “enjoy the moment, but focus on next Saturday (the final)”.
It was said with a smile and a bit of whimsy but the steely determination in his eyes wasn’t lost on any members of the squad. He said that to win the final, “We need to play like we played at the end [of the Coventry match], because we’ll have too many regrets if we play like we did in the first part of the game. So we have to prepare, really properly, the next phase”.
I’m not sure if those words went in one ear and out of the other, because in the final, we did play like the “first part” of the semi-final second leg, but something clicked in the seventy fifth minute. The team was galvanised and following Eliezer Mayenda’s equaliser, there was only one team in the game.
The mentality of Sunderland since Le Bris took charge is telling. Winning the first four games of the Championship season, going to Luton — freshly relegated from the Premier League — and beating them at Kenilworth Road after Luton had equalised.
In November 2024, we didn’t secure a single win, with five draws and a narrow defeat at Sheffield United, but the comeback at Swansea on 14 December (to be a prophetic date?) was another show of mental fortitude.
To be 2-0 down after twenty minutes only to claw the game back and win 2-3 was an early Christmas present for most Sunderland supporters. We also grabbed a late goal from Patrick Roberts to gain a point against Bristol City, and came from behind to beat Norwich.
Throughout last season, the theme was of Sunderland being underestimated. No one had done a deep enough dive to see that the mentality of the team was evolving into a never-say-die attitude and a team that never knew it was beaten.
At Middlesbrough, we were 1-0 down, then 1-1, then 2-1 up and then 2-2 before scoring a winner created by the genius of Enzo Le Fée, whose cross fizzed into the net off the hapless home defender Ryan Giles.
The only result that wasn’t typical of this attitude was away at Coventry on 15 March. Le Bris used this as a learning tool and indeed, Dan Neil later said that when we learned that Coventry were to be our playoff semi-final opponents, the attitude was “bring it on”; that there was unfinished business.
Throughout last season, the team spirit was second to none. Players had each other’s backs and they were all in it together; the goalkeeper missed a ball, and there was a centre back in on the line to cover.
This “pillar of mentality” has continued into the Premier League season…and then some.
With players like Granit Xhaka, Nordi Mukiele, Noah Sadiki and Chemsdine Talbi, they carry the mantra of being “all for one and one for all”.
Apparently, when he first arrived, Le Bris asked in his first team meeting what the players wanted to achieve that season. Promotion was the stated aim.
With that goal achieved, I wonder what the consensus was at the first team meeting of this season. Champions?
I wonder…
