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After a month away from home, Sunderland returned to the Stadium of Light looking to build on the feelgood factor with a visit from relegation-threatened Spurs, who were under new management.
Despite our poor Premier League record on Sundays when facing teams not named ‘Newcastle United’ paired with recent performances on International Fans’ Day Weekend not yielding wins, it felt like a far more uncertain match than the table suggested.
With several absentees able to return to full fitness over the extended international break, how did Régis Le Bris get the better of Roberto De Zerbi and ruin the Italian’s return to English football?
Sunderland lineup
After an extended international break, Le Bris was able to bolster his matchday squad with the welcome return of several players back to full fitness.
The likes of Enzo Le Fée, Nordi Mukiele and Reinildo were all only fit enough to make the bench against Newcastle, but returned to the starting eleven against Spurs.
Elsewhere, Melker Ellborg, Lutsharel Geertruida, Chemsdine Talbi and Trai Hume all dropped to the bench, which saw both Luke O’Nien and Chris Rigg retain their places following the derby win.
The returns of Mukiele and Reinildo meant Sunderland were able to utilise their wing backs in a much more meaningful sense to create the infamous wide triangles that we’d lost due to restricted personnel in defensive positions.
Rigg assumed his position on the right wing whilst Le Fée moved back across to the left side of the three-man midfield, rotating behind Brian Brobbey up front.
Without a recognised winger on the pitch, Sunderland were relying on the overlapping runs of both wing backs as well as the positional rotations of Rigg, Le Fée and Habib Diarra along the touchline in order to drag the Spurs press into areas they weren’t comfortable squeezing into.
Whilst in some ways this limited the traditional one-versus-one isolated wing play we’ve been crying out for, the combination of passes in wide areas lead to some real moments of quality from a team perspective, but just lacked the finishing touches at times.
Spurs lineup
With over a week on the training pitch to familiarise himself with his new squad, De Zerbi made five changes from the final game of his predecessor Igor Tudor’s last game against Nottingham Forest.
With two injury-enforced changes, Antonín Kinsky and Randal Kolo Muani came it to the team whilst the returns of Destiny Udogie, Lucas Bergvall and Connor Gallagher to full fitness allowed the trio to make the starting eleven under De Zerbi.
Moving to a more orthodox 4-3-3 system, De Zerbi opted to utilise a more narrow front three as whilst Richarilson and Kolo Muani would consider themselves ‘traditional’ central strikers, they’re also capable of playing out wide and driving infield to support the second phase of play alongside Dominic Solanke, who led the line.
Due to the attacking strengths of both Pedro Porro and Udogie, Spurs were looking to lean on the trademark De Zerbi patterns of build-up play seen at Brighton, in which they utilise a slow bounce pass to initiate the press before a quick switch to the winger or wing back in space on the opposite flank.
With a leaky defence and an attack that looked short of ideas, De Zerbi was torn between abandoning his expansive ideas and solidifying his defensive shape to build a base to survive, but in the end, he got neither from his Spurs side on the day.
A meeting of the minds
With Le Bris and De Zerbi having crossed paths once before during their respective 2024/2025 pre-season campaigns, both managers have gone on record to praise the other due, to their tactical nous and ability to make in-game adjustments in order to shift the momentum and impact the outcome for their team.
During his post-match interview, Granit Xhaka spoke about how this was the first time this season they’d encountered a coaching change prior to the game and it therefore ensured the preparations during the week were more focused on themselves than their opponents.
Both managers thrive on their ability to play without the ball and therefore this was going to very much be a game of cat and mouse between a potential aggressor and whoever looked to exploit the other on the counter.
Given our position in the table and home form, De Zerbi opted to play the percentages, surrendering possession and challenging the Sunderland coach to break his Spurs side down.
Sunderland finished this game with 52% possession — which reached 54% within the first half, recording the highest proportion of time spent with the ball in a home game this season, often with Spurs dropping into a low block on the edge of their own penalty area and tempting Sunderland to try and break them down.
Having struggled so often throughout his tenure to find answers when his side is asked to be the dominant force, Le Bris’ team did well to utilise controlled possession and carve out chances in the opening period.
Spurs’ press exploited
Despite a frantic opening period, Sunderland and Le Bris were quick to recognise a flaw in Tottenham’s press that could be easily exploited in order to break the midfield lines on command.
De Zerbi clearly recognised the influence of Xhaka and therefore opted to go man-for-man on the Sunderland captain, with a zonal screen just ahead of our skipper to prevent him from receiving the ball — but it left huge gaps either side of Xhaka.
Diarra recorded over 160m of progressive ball-carrying distance during his twenty carries, creating two chances and grabbing an assist in the process, with the space to exploit following the bypassing of Bergvall, Kolo Muani and Gallagher’s first line of initial press.
Diarra was able to show the best of himself, reminding everyone why he was such a threat at Strasbourg last season when carrying the ball from deep and arriving late due to his ability to make lung-busting runs through the heart of midfield.
Xhaka dictates the red and white orchestra once again
Following the half time break, De Zerbi tweaked his press to avoid the continual runs from Diarra and Le Fée evading the initial phase, and so by removing some of the zonal pressure on Xhaka, our Swiss maestro was able to really show of his control during the second period.
During a game which saw a real absence of leadership from the Spurs platers, Xhaka stood up to be counted, producing yet another magnificent yet efficient game in the centre of the park.
Our captain remains at his best when you don’t even notice him, enjoying over eighty five touches and keeping the game ticking over for Sunderland with 55/65 passes — including 3/5 long balls — and a staggering sixteen passes in the final third.
Xhaka did this whilst mopping up all the fifty-fifty duels in midfield and with 7/9 ground duels won and five tackles to his name, he kept things moving and showed once again how important he is to this Sunderland side.
De Zerbi overcomplicates it — and pays the price
With Sunderland in the ascendancy as the second half continued, it was the overcomplication of De Zerbi’s second half tactics that saw the Lads take the lead.
With Mukiele breaking down the right (a tactical shift to drop deeper whilst pushing Spurs’ midfield higher to press), it left a huge gap for him to stroll into, despite initially being forced down a blind alley.
The instructions to drop deeper meant nobody closed the space to Mukiele, leaving him over ten yards to advance into before his shot deflected off a lazy leg and looped into the corner beyond the helpless Kinsky.
Whilst De Zerbi may have had intentions to win the game, sometimes providing a mixture of instructions to a new squad backfires and at that moment, Spurs were punished for their naivety.
The run-in awaits!
With Sunderland now looking a stretch of games which will see them play teams around them and fighting for those European places, it doesn’t appear that there’ll be any ‘dead rubber’ fixtures as we round out what’ll go down as a truly memorable season on our return to the top flight.
Trips to Everton and Aston Villa will be followed by home games with both Manchester United and Chelsea —which all have implications on who finishes in the top ten come May 24.
As the likes of Bertrand Traoré and Nilson Angulo return to full fitness, Sunderland will be targeting their highest ever Premier League points tally of the twenty first century, currently sitting just one shy of the forty seven achieved by Steve Bruce’s side in 2010/2011.