Régis Le Bris is fast approaching a second full season in charge at Sunderland, a feat that only three others have reached in the last 30 years – Steve Bruce, Mick McCarthy, and Peter Reid.
This stat is amazing in itself and stands out even more when you look at the high turnover of managers/head coaches we’ve seen during these tenures. As RLB looks set to become part of this exclusive club, it’s amazing to think about how, in two periods of his time on Wearside, there have been calls for him to be sacked.
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With a play-off place secured and our chances of an automatic promotion spot gone by around this time a year ago, RLB shifted tactics and eased up in games, which resulted in a five-game losing streak heading into the play-offs.
As nervous as this was, several people were calling for him to be replaced before the end of the season, keen to undo months of hard work. The club was never going to make such a stupid move, but it certainly made for some baffling reading on the often ridiculous world of SAFC social media.
In hindsight, the club bided its time, prepared for a two-legged play-off against a side we hadn’t beaten away from home in over 40 years and – with a stroke of luck – got the job done and booked our place at Wembley.
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Fast forward almost 12 months, and after a sticky period at the start of 2026, talk was emerging of how ‘RLB has taken us as far as he can’. For the first time all season, we lost consecutive games, and two of these were against Arsenal and Liverpool. Is it arrogance? Is it getting carried away after a fantastic season up to that point?
Whatever it was, it came across as reactionary and ridiculous, given that the weeks that followed have seen us bounce back and win back-to-back away games, surpassing 40 points and putting us in a brilliant position to achieve a top-half finish.
The modern game is ruthless, and far too many clubs are trigger-happy in bowing down to fan pressure by getting rid of a manager in the hopes of getting an instant reaction. There are so many clubs where a manager is given so little time to try and implement his own tactics and influence on a group of players he, in the most part, won’t have signed himself.
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There is no patience in the game when it comes to firing the men in the dugout, so many teams and their supporters yearn for stability yet call for a manager’s head at the slightest hint of a downturn. Some clubs are more expectant and demanding than others; that’s just how things are, unfortunately.
For far too long, Sunderland were like this. Managers would come and go seemingly every six months as the hierarchy tried desperately to get an instant reaction from players and supporters. We’ve had 11 managers in the last 10 years, and that’s not even including various caretaker roles.
With most of these, we had hoped that they could be a man to lead us through a stable period for a matter of years rather than months, but it’s never quite worked out that way. In Régis Le Bris, Sunderland could well have found the perfect type of head coach to be at Sunderland – someone who is level-headed and doesn’t get swept up in emotions, either good or bad.