REGIS Le Bris is ready for more “tough conversations” with his Sunderland players as he prepares to rotate in the weeks ahead to ensure the Black Cats don’t run out of steam in the promotion run-in.
If Sunderland’s coach believes any of his players would benefit from a break, he won’t hesitate to pull them out of the starting XI, as was the case with Chris Mepham a couple of weeks ago.
With Dan Ballard now facing a couple of months on the sidelines, Mepham will be back in the side for tonight’s game at Sheffield Wednesday.
But Le Bris is closely monitoring all of his players and wants to strike the right balance with selection in the weeks ahead. After successive defeats for the first time this season, the head coach wants Sunderland to get back to winning ways and build some momentum but will also prioritise the condition of his players to make sure they’re as fresh as can be at this stage of what is a gruelling Championship campaign.
That means he won’t be afraid to tweak his side in the final 12 games of the season.
“Our main output will always be on the football output, rather than physical data or anything like that,” he said.
“It’s the stage of the season where this is important. We have done well so far, and we have to remember this.
“The team and the squad are in a good place, but it is possible we can struggle for a period. We were good at Leeds, I think – it wasn’t our best performance against Hull but at the same time it wasn’t a disaster. We could have won the game but sometimes you can make a mistake and be punished – maybe in the next game it doesn’t happen this way.
“It’s important to manage the squad for sure, to finish the league with good momentum. We have had many injuries, sometimes suspensions, so it wasn’t always possible [to rotate]. Now we have this opportunity a bit more because we are closer to a full squad. We will see.
“In a long season like this, this stage is like ‘the wall’ in the marathon and it is tough for everyone. We have to manage it properly and we know it’s normal to have fatigue, but at the same time it creates the condition to manage the squad and to involve the players in the recovery process.”
What Le Bris won’t accept is fatigue being used as an excuse.
He said: “If we have the ambition to be in the top bracket of the league, we can’t complain that we are tired and say we can’t play well as a result. If we want to play at the top level, Premier League, European competition then there are many games to play. We have to learn and experience this dynamic.
“We have these two focuses, I think. We want to take care of the team but we also want take care of our players – it’s always connected. If we only think about the [short-term] performance of the team, the players will not trust us. It’s always a question of balance.
“If we just make decisions for the team that damage the career of the players, we won’t be connected for long. We have to find the balance. We are really connected because when we have to have tough conversations, we do this.
“So for example, we had the conversation about Meps a couple of weeks ago. It was really important for him to recover because his dynamic was a little bit low, even for a player as important and impressive as him he needed to recover. Now he’s fresh again – sometimes the players don’t like this conversation but they understand it is good for both them and the team.”
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