The Right Stuff: Sunderland’s Core Shines in Gritty Villa Draw

Sunday’s hard-fought draw demonstrated a great deal about where the current Sunderland squad are.

There were praiseworthy individual performances across the pitch, and the character of the team was amply demonstrated, as they coped with the challenge of going a man down in the first half.

The experience that has been carefully recruited across the summer came to the fore. Granit Xhaka led from the front, and the experience of players like Nordi Mukiele and Omar Alderete was critical to nullifying the admittedly limited challenge that Aston Villa presented, despite their numerical advantage.

What also became clearer was which players from last season’s squad are in the mind of Régis Le Bris, when it comes to determining who he considers capable of stepping up to Premier League level.

We all have our own views as to who has earned a crack at top-level football. Many of us would have liked to see if Patrick Roberts was capable of replicating the performances that propelled him to Manchester City at such a young age. The fact that he has been allowed to leave for Championship Birmingham City is an obvious indicator that the coaching staff did not see him making the jump to the standard that the Premier League is today.

Against Aston Villa, it became much more obvious which Championship players enjoy the confidence of Le Bris to make the step up.

Trai Hume, Enzo Le Fée, Wilson Isidor, and Eliezer Mayenda have all featured heavily in the opening five games. It was noteworthy that when Le Bris wanted to introduce fresh legs in place of Isidor, who started the game as he had against Crystal Palace, it was Mayenda rather than Brian Brobbey who got the nod.

Those four Wembley heroes will undoubtedly continue to play a significant role in Le Bris’ thinking.

With a late injury to Habib Diarra, Le Bris opted to start Chris Rigg. The teenager repaid the faith in him, linking up effectively with Chemsdine Talbi on the right flank. For the first time this season, the attacking play down that side eclipsed the efforts of Le Fée, Sadiki, and Reinildo on the left. The latter’s unnecessary red card sadly reduced Rigg’s appearance to little more than a cameo, but he showed more than enough to justify the coach’s faith in selecting him.

At the same time, Reinildo’s dismissal opened up an unlikely route back for Dan Ballard. After his performances against Coventry and at Wembley, it was almost unthinkable that he would not be in the team when fit. However, the partnership between Nordi Mukiele and Omar Alderete has become so rock-solid that it was difficult to see a route back for him.

The problem that Reinildo’s departure created prompted Le Bris to change tactics. He could have replaced Rigg with Masuaku and stayed with a back four. Instead, he opted to put his faith in Ballard and move to a back three. Ballard repaid him hugely with his usual massive, wholehearted approach.

Finally, Le Bris spoke warmly during the week about the part Dan Neil is likely to play this season. His keenness to ensure that last season’s skipper at least got a taste of Premier League football was obvious yesterday, as the game drew to a close.

With the raft of expensive and experienced new signings across the summer, it would be easy to assume that it would spell the end for most of the players who delivered Premier League football to Sunderland. Régis Le Bris clearly understands the importance of maintaining the core belief of the team which kept performing ‘til the end’, and identifying which players can take their game to the next level.

His faith in Hume, Le Fée, Mayenda, Isidor, Rigg, Ballard, and Neil will go a long way to ensure that the attitude and character that carried the team through the play-off campaign will become embedded in this Premier League squad.

The approach to last season’s final five meaningless fixtures clearly demonstrated that ‘momentum’ is not a concept that figures greatly in the cerebral French coach’s mind. What he was able to do was to foster a spirit in the squad, to deliver when it really mattered.

It seems that Le Bris now has a clearer sense of which of those players have the capability to reproduce that approach in the Premier League.

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