Regis Le Bris wants Sunderland to remain consistent after win at Portsmouth

Posted Sunday, September 01, 2024 by PA

Sunderland head coach Regis Le Bris is at a loss to explain his side’s perfect start to the season after cruising to a 3-1 victory over Portsmouth.

The Black Cats have won four games in a row, and only missed out on a quartet of clean sheets with a freak 91st-minute own goal at Fratton Park.

Despite masterminding Sunderland’s best start to a season for 99 years, Le Bris insists he has not done anything special since arriving in the summer.

“I don’t think like that,” said the Frenchman. “It is just a question of going game by game and working on the pitch.

“We just analyse the best game plan to play against the opponent and then we play.

“There is no specific explanation to our start. I hope we continue it, but football is hard.”

Sunderland are the only team in the Football League not to have dropped points in 2024-25 and Le Bris explained how he will continue the run.

Le Bris, who has selected the youngest average age XI in the Championship, and started three teenagers at Fratton Park, said: “It is a balance between confidence and the consistency that we need to keep to create the conditions to win.

“I’m sure that they will remember last season. That was very important for them because they experienced many bad and good situations.

“Now they know that if we aren’t consistent as a team, if we don’t attack together or are selfish, we will lose.

“The balance at the moment is OK but we need to stay very consistent.

“The key point for us today was that we used the experience of the first half to know what we could change and those small details changed the game.”

Sunderland had taken the lead in the 31st minute when Jordan Williams’ clearance clattered into team-mate Zak Swanson’s midriff and in.

But they were unstoppable at the start of the second half, as they netted twice in five minutes.

Alan Browne poked in the second after a clumsy touch and scuff from Eliezer Mayenda, before striker Mayenda teed up Romaine Mundle to slot in his second goal of the campaign and send the travelling 2,081 fans wild.

Luke O’Nien headed through his own goal to end a 389 minutes without conceding this season, but Pompey boss John Mousinho admitted he had been bested by his opponent.

“It is disappointing to lose the game and Sunderland thoroughly deserved to win it,” said Mousinho.

“There were a lot of small moments in the game, not just the goals, and they add up and in the end show there is a big gulf between the two sides.

“It isn’t something we can’t bridge at some point, but we have to be a lot better than that.

“They were very ruthless, although strangely I think we have conceded more chances in the two away games where we weren’t punished. Maybe today was coming a bit.

“Sunderland put their chances away and then were comfortable after that.

“One of the other differences between the two sides is those small moments where we are faced with defenders and we have the opportunity to get the ball in the box – we didn’t have enough quality.

“We didn’t create enough to win the game, but I am less disappointed about that than about the defending, because I think we need to make better decisions going forward with out defensive play.”