BBC 'It was a bad afternoon' - Le Bris


Same old boring dross from him .
Your a big part of the problem with the same tactics and subs every single game.
Said it for weeks he's not the man for the job .
His tactics have been sussed now and we are so easy to play against.
Time to show us you've got a plan b or get out the door
Any team pressing us and not giving us time on the ball gets a result. Coventry played well but we made it so simple for them. Our energy levels and lack of awareness were awful. Reminded me v Luton in the playoffs.
 
Don't necessarily disagree but don't think it's as black and white as that either.

Think it's hard to gauge how good this team is. We finished 6th under Mowbray but had Amad and Clarke, but at the same time played without a striker for about 2/3rds of the season and probably would have pushed on further if not for injuries. We lost Amad and had a complete disaster of a season last year, finishing 16th, but played without a striker all season. We've now addressed the striker situation and have two good ones and the young players like Jobe, Rigg and Mundle have naturally improved with experience. So are we over/under performing? Are we par for the course? I don't know.

I'd be inclined to say Le Bris has done a really good job overall but there's still some major concerns. His lack of substitutions and squad rotation is genuinely terrible and is arguably costing us right now and at other points in the season. The players have looked exhausted for a while, and although the squad is fairly small and hasn't been helped by injuries, he's still frozen out players who could have been useful and played the same 13-14 over and over. His record at Lorient was basically a brilliant start in his first 10 games then relatively poor throughout the rest of the season followed by relegation in his second season. It's hard to look past that. And we look very predictable and flat in so many of those games against the middle of the road teams.

On the flip side, he's clearly an excellent coach as it was obvious from pretty much day one how well drilled the team were. A lot of our early play and success was clearly straight from the training pitch with the pressing triggers and patterns of play. But I think we saw a combination of teams figuring us out and Le Bris becoming a lot more cautious around October time after the Plymouth and Watford losses and we've kind of plodded on since without ever really convincing too much. We're miles better when we can play on the break against the top teams but look a bit clueless when we've got to break teams down.

Feel a bit like Southgate's England where you have to commend the job he's done overall but also feel there's another gear to go up to and not sure if he's got it in him to deliver the ultimate aim. Kind of agree with others that he won't be here this time next year - either we go up and they pull the trigger early on and go for a more experienced manager or we don't go up and pressure starts to build if we're not in the running for the automatics, rightly or wrongly.
I would agree but sometimes you have to have this first and then maybe somebody else to carry them over the line. A bit like England have done with Tuchel (a finisher so to speak). He wouldn’t work last season or this as the players were not ‘ready’.

What I rail against is idiotic posters who would be writing the same if a Tuchel type was in charge.
 
Not saying it would be the right thing to do, but I was hoping to see him be a bit more critical of the players tbh. Not throwing individuals under the bus or owt, not completely destroying morale, but letting them know that they aren't meeting the standards required as a group and haven't been for several weeks. We lack that leader who will tell them some home truths. Our experienced players are pretty much Onien who isn't that type, Mepham who is only on loan (and doesn't exactly seem the type either tbh). Don't see it coming from Roberts, Patterson or Neil either. Browne has been a captain before but is a bit part player so probably not the best one for the job. If no one in the team is doing that, the coach has to. He also needs to make changes and try something different mind, no reason why we should be utterly passive against every single team we come up against
i would expect him to be critical of the players in private, in the dressing room and on the training ground, not in front of a microphone. doing it publicly is a pretty stupid thing to do imo and rarely has a positive outcome.
 
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It's not great but still a lot can change. We are in 4th and in a good position to get into the play-offs. The coaches and manager have to instill the confidence that was running through the team at the start of the season. We can beat any team on that early form. We just have to regain that belief.
 
He has taken us forward this season compared to the shambles of last season, but he has none of the characteristics of any Sunderland manager I've ever seen deliver promotion here, and a lot of the characteristics of those who never would (like Ross and Johnson).

This bloke will never deliver promotion to the Premier League, it's just not possible to do that playing football that is so dull, so cautious, so risk averse, so predictable, so reliant on such a small group of players, and with such an aversion to ever change anything.

So I think there will come a point fairly soon (I don't mean this season) where we decide we need to get rid. I'd be surprised if he is here at the end of next season.
 
Reggie like all our previous managers under this regime will ultimately carry the can.We as a club will never make real progress until there is ships of the desert in the carpark.When he gets the chop,we will be back to square one.Not many will undertake the job under so tight sustainability rules.
He has taken us forward this season compared to the shambles of last season, but he has none of the characteristics of any Sunderland manager I've ever seen deliver promotion here, and a lot of the characteristics of those who never would (like Ross and Johnson).

This bloke will never deliver promotion to the Premier League, it's just not possible to do that playing football that is so dull, so cautious, so risk averse, so predictable, so reliant on such a small group of players, and with such an aversion to ever change anything.

So I think there will come a point fairly soon (I don't mean this season) where we decide we need to get rid. I'd be surprised if he is here at the end of next season.
He relies on a small group because the tight arse owners sign battalions of players which we are now scattering world wide were never good enough.
 
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We are also missing the strength in depth across all positions probably worst in all the midfield positions.

The subs bench should be on par with starting line up in terms of quality so they are always pushing to be in the starting line up.

I don't think it is (for the 5 key midfield positions).
Another big summer of transfers required, or it would be nice to have just one big transfer window with 7 or 8 quality signings.
 
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Same old boring dross from him .
Your a big part of the problem with the same tactics and subs every single game.
Said it for weeks he's not the man for the job .
His tactics have been sussed now and we are so easy to play against.
Time to show us you've got a plan b or get out the door
We were stuck in the third division for years and we ended up with people like Simon Grayson you balloon.
 
If it was about fatigue then there were 4 lads on the bench who haven’t had that much game time recently who could have come in for the kick off who may of added energy.

Aleksic for Rigg
Browne for Neil/Jobe
Moore for Patto
Watson for Roberts

To say after the game that the players are tired, when you rarely rotate the team unless forced by injury is a bit ridiculous. Use your squad, we will lose some by doing it, but we need to go into the play offs fresh and ready (if we can stay in the play off area)
 
You’d love that wouldn’t you. I think you need to go and support another club tbh. You clearly don’t want us or him to do well, you immediately jump to negatives. If it does happen you’ll play the victim and say you were pelted for it. You’re basically manifesting at this stage. All for what? To say “I was right on the SMB” Tbh, I feel a bit sorry for you as it seems your entire purpose.

As you love bleating on about it. We had a very similar dip in 21/22 under Alex Neil and still won the play offs. Idk why you want to write it all off right now.

The fact you think people can just “go and support another club” says more about you than me.

Keep kissing the clubs arse whilst we continue our longest ever spell outside the top flight.
 
It's staggering that some are suggesting we ditch RLB, first season in England, only his 3rd season as head coach/manager, 4th in the league, c'mon, be serious. Performances have been below par, some well below, since the turn of the year I know but to get rid would be mental. I for one am more than comfortable with keeping him through into next season irrespective which league we're in.
 
i would expect him to be critical of the players in private, in the dressing room and on the training ground, not in front of a microphone. doing it publicly is a pretty stupid thing to do imo and rarely has a positive outcome.
Don't really agree tbh. Yes, calling out individuals is a stupid thing to do, but saying that, as a group, they're not meeting standards is fine. Just about every manager does it when they feel the players need a bit of a kick up the arse. Guardiola has done it a few times, Mourinho has done it pretty regularly. I'm struggling to think of a top coach/ manager that hasn't done it tbh. They won't normally say "Rigg you've been ineffective for months" or owt in public, but criticising the group is different. If it's stupid, then all the best managers in the world must be daft
 
Don't really agree tbh. Yes, calling out individuals is a stupid thing to do, but saying that, as a group, they're not meeting standards is fine. Just about every manager does it when they feel the players need a bit of a kick up the arse. Guardiola has done it a few times, Mourinho has done it pretty regularly. I'm struggling to think of a top coach/ manager that hasn't done it tbh. They won't normally say "Rigg you've been ineffective for months" or owt in public, but criticising the group is different. If it's stupid, then all the best managers in the world must be daft
mourinho's a busted flush and has been for a long time. city are really responding to pep's calling them out as well aren't they.
 
On the point about criticising players in private/public, one of the narratives all season has been that Le Bris wants players to work out their own solutions to problems. I wasn't at the talk in with O'Nien and Dan Neil the other week but heard Frankie talking about it - apparently they said Le Bris never actually criticises, he'll just pause the video at a particular moment, raise an eyebrow and leave the players to work out themselves what went wrong.

No doubt that is great for developing players and encouraging them to think, but I hope he's more direct than that. We've looked bereft of ideas for a while now and certainly looked like our race is run since the Leeds game. Youth development has to take a backseat at this stage of the season and we need to focus on building momentum for the play offs. On a side note, I never agreed with the criticism Lampard got for his managerial record, but at the same time he's clearly more of a vibes and momentum man than a tactician and we've played into their hands by rolling over for them.
 
mourinho's a busted flush and has been for a long time. city are really responding to pep's calling them out as well aren't they.
Pep and Mourinho both did it when they were the most successful coaches out there. It's not as simple as "never say anything critical in public". I'm not convinced that naming players specifically has much of a record of working, but generally criticising the levels of a group can work depending on the makeup of the group. It's definitely not as simple as being stupid to do so, given the best coaches in the world have all done it at times during their most successful spells
 

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