Danny Collins has disagreed with Regis Le Bris’ assessment of Sunderland’s narrow victory over Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend.
It’s been a difficult run of fixtures for Sunderland after they suffered successive defeats to Leeds United and Hull City, seeing their chances of claiming an automatic promotion place shrink significantly.
However, the Black Cats got back to winning ways on Friday night with a hard-fought 2-1 victory at Sheffield Wednesday.
An Eliezer Mayenda brace either side of Callum Paterson’s equaliser secured the three points for Sunderland but it was far from a vintage performance.
Regis Le Bris named a heavily changed starting XI for the match and it was a disjointed display as a result as his side laboured to a win.
The manager believes the changes helped freshen up the team, but Danny Collins does not agree with him.
Danny Collins did not see a fresh Sunderland vs Sheffield Wednesday
Le Bris named an unchanged side for the defeats to the Yorkshire teams, with the players looking particularly leggy in the home loss to Hull. As a result, he made sweeping changes for the trip to Hillsborough.
Mayenda, Romanie Mundle, Alan Browne, Chris Mempham and Leo Hjelde came in for Wilson Isidor, Enzo Le Fee, Chris Rigg, Daniel Ballard and Dennis Cirkin
After the match, Le Bris explained how it was important to add energy to the team with the changes. He said: “I think it was important to give a new energy to the team.
“It wasn’t easy to play football. I think it was more a question of energy, commitment and resilience.”
However, Collins does not believe the changes helped to freshen things up. He said when asked about it on Total Sport – North East: “Not really, no. Sometimes the scoreline can cloud over a performance. I think it’s that.
“Yes, he made five changes – I think everybody was expecting a few in the previous game against Hull. It didn’t happen, he went with the same eleven after the Leeds defeat and I think that caught up with us.”
Should Mayenda keep his place over Isidor for Cardiff fixture?
Sunderland are now eight points off the automatic promotion places after their drop in form but there’s still plenty of football left to play and anything can happen. But they must start stringing wins together.
That starts with this Saturday’s visit of lowly Cardiff City and Le Bris has given himself a major selection dilemma.
Though many of the rested stars will likely return to the side, surely Mayenda deserves to keep his place after his lively display and nicely taken double?
It doesn’t necessarily have to be instead of top scorer Isidor, either, as Mayenda can play out on the flanks, which could be handy given Le Fee’s injury.
Mayenda should start on the right against Cardiff, with the tired Patrick Roberts getting a much-needed rest of his own. Mundle can continue on the left with Rigg coming back into the middle.