The Sunderland boss has identified an issue that his side must work on ahead of the first game of the 2024/25 Championship season.
Sunderland scraped a 1-0 victory away at Bloomfield Road, with Jack Clarke getting the goal to see off League One outfit Blackpool.
It was the Black Cats’ third pre-season victory out of five games, with just one defeat coming against Gateshead.
Many individuals impressed during the Black Cats’ run-out, in particular new midfield signing Alan Browne, who clearly implemented Regis Le Bris’ tactic very well and distilled leadership into the centre-of-the-park.
Despite the victory on the road for Sunderland, Le Bris wasn’t quite full of praise for the Black Cats’ side, with the French boss identifying a key issue that his side must get to grips with ahead of their opening Championship clash with Cardiff City in two weeks time.
Regis Le Bris emphasises the need for Sunderland to ‘unbalance a compact defence’
Although Sunderland managed an away win against Blackpool, he still identified issues with his side, particularly on the attacking front.
Per The Northern Echo, Le Bris said: “Obviously it was a hard game because we needed to unbalance a compact defence.
“It wasn’t easy to solve this problem and I think it will be one of our main problems at home for example during the season.
“The energy was good but the way we solved this problem wasn’t really achieved, so we need to work on it to analyse the videos and different clips to improve this part of our game.
“In two weeks we will play against Cardiff. It’s time to reduce the group and prepare the starting XI and maybe three, four, five substitutes will be involved. So we reduced today with this intention.
“Now it’s time to find the little adjustments to unbalance the problems like today.”
Is Sunderland’s attacking issues down to tactics or personnel
Le Bris has made it adamantly clear that he looks to cut down on squad depth, with the likes of striker Luis Hemir being dropped to the youth ranks for the recent pre-season friendly.
Eliezer Mayenda led the line at striker against Blackpool, however was unable to cause any significant threat to the Tangerines’ solitude defence, leaving it up to Clarke to strike late on.
With the fact that Le Bris’ Lorient side in his first senior coaching season was high-scoring, fast-moving and difficult to play against, you have to look towards whether Sunderland have sufficient attacking personnel to implement the Frenchman’s style of play with efficiency.
Although Mayenda has surprised a few with his performances during pre-season, it still remains clear that Sunderland must bring in the likes of Alexandre Mendy, who they are still reportedly interlocked in talks with, in order to provide that necessary goal scoring prowess.
Huge credit must be given to Le Bris in identifying his squad’s issues early on, it is now down to Kristjaan Speakman to deliver with bringing in attacking talent in order to avoid an issue that could become ‘a main problem all season’.