Sunderland Head Coach Régis Le Bris has called on his players to show “intensity” over the coming weeks, as they look to bounce back from several draws and a defeat heading into the festive period. Daniel Wales reports.
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00:00Finding the winning touch has become an obsession for Sunderland at present and
00:04something that they have not managed to discover for a little while now in the
00:08championship with several draws in succession before an away loss against
00:12promotion rival Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on Friday. The frustration
00:18for Regis Lebris and his young squad is that performance levels have not
00:21dipped drastically and if anything have remained relatively consistent and yet
00:26both goals and results have dried up. Rediscovering the form they exhibited
00:31earlier in the season is now vital to sustaining their promotion challenge.
00:38The loss against the Blades was especially hard to take as their display had been
00:42commanding for large parts and yet they left empty-handed.
00:56You played so well in many, many phases away at Sheffield United. It's really
01:05frustrating to lose that game but football is like that, the competition is
01:11like that and we have to face with it and keep going. For the players it was
01:18also a better pill to swallow although Lebris made clear that the squad must
01:22maintain intensity in order to return to form in the coming weeks.
01:27I think they talked a lot in their group about that game and the ambition we
01:32should have and so far we had 18 games so we faced with almost all the teams of
01:39the league so we know the level of the league and we were good in many games so
01:46their responsibility is very high, ours too, but they can believe in their
01:56qualities, good qualities, their potential as a team, as players and as a
02:00player and now it's a question of intensity. You have to give everything on
02:05the pitch and at the end you can't really control the results but you can
02:10control your commitment, your intensity, your winningness. Lebris also talked of
02:16work on the training ground and how this will enable the squads to bounce back
02:19from the tricky patch they have been experiencing. This week was very good, it
02:24was a very good week and it's a good sign because they are still involved and
02:29as a staff we have to manage these periods and during training session
02:34we can work on many, many different elements so the choices this week I think
02:39were good about what we have to improve to get this new dynamic again and the
02:47players were really involved. The session of this morning was really good
02:51for example we worked on this final third and I don't know if it was enough
02:56we'll see but we are working on it.