Regis Le Bris has taken stock of his squad after the transfer window and admitted, “we are in a good place.” The Sunderland head coach was speaking ahead of the club’s home game with Watford on Saturday (12.30pm) at the Stadium of Light.
He has had time to reflect on the club’s business and said: “There are many different topics. The first one is the players who left the club to find minutes, to find games. Five players were in those situations. Aaron [Connolly] was a permanent transfer and four others, Adil [Aouchiche], Abdoullah [Ba], Zac [Johnson] and Naz [Rusyn]. It was an important move for them to find game time and to play because when you are not involved in the main squad, it’s difficult to improve their level so it’s important for them, I think.
“The second topic is about the retention of talents. It’s still important to remind ourselves that when we have very good players some interest can be around and we had this possibility to keep them with us. So they trust us, we trust them, the confidence is shared, so that’s good news.
“The third thing is the returns [from injury]. I said it before in the first part of the season, we had many injured players and I hope they will be available for the second half of the season. Salis [Abdul Samed] is an example. We will have five, six, seven players like that and we expect they will give something else for the team.
“The final topic is the recruitment process. We recruited two players. Enzo [Le Fee], we can see he will suit our game plan, with our team, with the other players. His connection is getting better and he will get stronger. The last one is Jayden [Danns]. In the medical we found an underlying issue so we have to wait a little bit and hopefully in a couple of weeks we will see, I’m not sure of the time.”
Another player who should have moved on loan was Jewison Bennette, to Charlton, but it fell through.
“In this transfer window we still have this problem where in the last minutes, this happens,” explained Le Bris. “II’s still possible to find a club because some markets are still open. We will see.”
Le Bris also stated that Mike Dodds may not be replaced. On Dodds’ move to Wycombe to become head coach, Le Bris said: “It was a tough decision for him because we really enjoyed the connection. In his pathway it was clear he wanted to be a head coach and when the opportunity came he had to make a decision and we respect that. At the same time our professional life is like that, sometimes you have to make tough decisions.
“Is it useful to bring in a new assistant or not? I’m not sure. We will see in the next seven to 10 days. The players have grown and we want to give the possibility [in Dodds’ absence] to choose by themselves and I hope it will create new conditions for more responsibility.”
View news Source: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/regis-le-bris-four-big-30951145
