Sunderland’s pre-season campaign got well underway at the weekend.
The Black Cats enjoyed their annual friendlies against Gateshead and South Shields, having taken two dramatic wins against them last summer.
Their victory over the latter was much more convincing this time, thrashing The Mariners 5-0, with goals from Patrick Roberts, Trai Hume, Chris Rigg, Eliezer Mayenda and Adil Aouchiche.
A completely new squad then took on Gateshead just hours later, but were unable to prevent a 2-1 defeat to the National League club.
Sunderland are now preparing to jet off to Spain where they will undergo a warm weather training camp, as well as taking on Nottingham Forest and Eldense.
Regis Le Bris sends message to Sunderland squad
Regis Le Bris has now sent a message to his team following the weekend’s results, as well as explaining what he is still ‘waiting’ for this summer.
Speaking to the Sunderland Echo, the Frenchman said: “After two weeks of technical and physical reconditioning, for me, it was the real start of the season because we are here to play games and it’s our pleasure. So it was interesting. Two different scenarios, two different teams. They were mixed and I felt that the players tried to express their ideas.”
When asked what he had learned so far, he added: “We want to build a strong unit, a strong team with ideas in different phases of the game. So we want to be a proactive team. For sure, we have talented players, but the ideas behind all this preparation is to be a team and I think we can build this team. But we need some time and different experiences to achieve that goal.
“We’ll have many times to get to know each other.
“I think it’s also one of our main purposes, but we’ll have time also to go deeper in the different tactical principles. So I’m waiting for that moment to increase our level. Because we will play against two stronger teams also, we’ll have other experiences.”
Asked what he would like to get out of the trip to Spain, Le Bris responded: “We need to improve. These two experiences will be very useful to understand where we are at the moment. For sure, we always need better opponents to increase our level. I hope this season will be interesting for that.”
Why pre-season results mean absolutely nothing
Sunderland already know that pre-season means nothing but to get minutes into those tired legs.
In summer 2022, the Black Cats claimed only one win from friendlies against Bradford City, Accrington Stanley and Hartlepool, before going onto reach the Championship play-offs.
It doesn’t mean anything for the season approaching, but rather just increases fitness and also gives players the opportunity to impress Le Bris, while he can learn more about his team.
They will definitely benefit from their trip to Spain though, with Forest being their first Premier League opponent in pre-season since before they were relegated from the top division.