As is usually the case when a player prepares to face his former employers – Duncan Watmore’s Millwall host Sunderland on Saturday – the conversation quickly turns to the topic of celebrations.
And it just so happens that Regis Le Bris’ Championship leaders are running into a former Black Cat at the peak of his powers.
Duncan Watmore has five goals in just 11 league starts this season for perennial overachievers Millwall. That is more than he managed across the entirety of his first two campaigns for The Lions.
But if Watmore was to take his tally to six against Sunderland this weekend, would a forward who spent seven years at the Stadium of Light from 2013 to 2020 take the opportunity to rub it in the faces of his old Wearside admirers?
Duncan Watmore won’t celebrate if he scores for Millwall against Sunderland
“Sunderland were brilliant with me and I am so grateful for them. They took me from non-league, so I owe them a lot,” Watmore tells the South London Press, hardly the sort of character to create drama where it is not needed. “I have lots of people I know up there and lots of friends. It’s a brilliant club.
“They have had an amazing start. They’re top of the table, so it’s quite an achievement.
“No,” Watmore adds firmly when pressed on whether any potential goal will be followed by a wild-eyed celebration. “You can never say never because of the moment with the adrenaline [but] I personally wouldn’t out of choice.
“It’s just [about] showing a bit of respect.”
It was Sunderland, as Watmore is keen to point out, who plucked a young forward out of relative obscurity a decade ago. The former England Under 21 international was playing non-league football for Altrincham when he joined the Black Cats, shortly after a loan spell at Curzon Ashton.
Only six players have found the target more regularly than Watmore, meanwhile, in the 2024/25 Championship campaign.
Regis Le Bris keen to get Sunderland back to winning ways
Regis Le Bris’ own leading marksman – Wilson Isidor’s ‘hammer’-like finishing firing Sunderland into top spot – is on five goals himself, albeit from just nine starts.
And while Le Bris cannot rule out Sunderland dipping into the market in January – there is an argument to be made that the Black Cats need another centre-forward as crisis-hit French giants Lyon make Gift Orban available for transfer – the coach insists that the international break was not spent obsessing over potential additions but instead looking internally to snap a three-match winless run.
“The main task [during the international break] was around our team, the current team, because I believe the solution is here,” Le Bris told reporters on Thursday.
“[Our attention remains on] the way we can develop our players. The players who didn’t play so much from the beginning of the season are our best players at the moment.
“We know that probably will have some weak positions, so we are working on these weak positions [in the transfer market]. But this wasn’t my main task.”