And so to the Stadium of Light, where the season’s surprise package, Sunderland, and our old friend Granit Xhaka await in Saturday’s late afternoon game.
Before the season began, few would have expected this to be a top-four clash. No one in the Predictathon has the Black Cats finishing higher than 13th, and most believe they will be relegated. Feel the weight of those points.
Yet Régis Le Bris’s team sits fourth after 10 games, having only been beaten at Burnley and the Old Toilet. Their win total should be six, not five. They outplayed Everton last Sunday but let the Toffees escape Wearside with a draw.
Régis Le Bris
Le Bris is an intriguing character. Firstly, he is Breton. Brittany has produced many famous players but few coaches. Le Bris played as a centre-half for Rennes, the Ligue 1 club in the regional capital, making sporadic appearances for its first team over five seasons, despite being promising enough as a teenager to have played for France up to U-17 level. At 27, he chucked in a playing career that is well described as low key.
He turned to coaching in youth development football, quickly progressing to managing Rennes’s Academy. During this time, he earned a doctorate in sports psychology and a diplôme universitaire, a specifically French academic accolade, in the cognitive training of elite athletes. In 2012, he took charge of Lorient’s U-19 team, stepping up to the reserves and then his first senior head coach role in 2022. He left the club in June 2024 after Lorient was relegated. Nine days later, he joined Sunderland, guiding them back to the Premier League through the play-offs.
Like many of his generation of European coaches, he wants his teams to play with tactical flexibility within a structured but not rigid framework. It is post-Pep positional play, what Guardiola himself has called the ‘modern’ football of Iraola’s Bournemouth, Hürzeler’s Brighton, Howe’s Newcastle and Slot’s Liverpool.
Whether his teams start in a 4-2-3-1, a 4-3-3 or even the 3-4-3 he used for a season at Lorient and last weekend against Everton, they spend phases of every game playing in similar shapes, dropping into a compact 5-4-1 or 4-4-2 when out of possession, for example, or, when attacking, having a full back, a winger and an 8 create rotating triangles on the flanks to get behind the opposition’s back line.
If all this sounds familiar, it is. Listen to Le Bris talk, and you will hear many of the same themes that Arteta goes on about — high standards, consistency, adaptability, constant improvement, player development, team spirit, club culture and a connection to the fans.
The Opposition
A further similarity is that Le Bris has built his side on a solid defensive structure that denies opponents clear chances. Expected goals against (xGA) have been under 1.0 in half their games, and their average xGA per shot is 0.09; only ours is lower. When a shot is got off, it still has to beat Robin Roefs, the young Dutch keeper bought from NEC Nijmegen for €10.5 million in August. He is the Premier League’s leading shot-stopper so far this season.
Whether Le Bris starts with a back three, four, or five — his teamsheets for Sunderland’s past three games have used all three — Dan Ballard, formerly of this parish, is likely to be at the heart of it. When we sold him to Sunderland in 2022, he had won 16 Northern Ireland caps, which was 16 more than his appearances for our first team. He surely wouldn’t be keeping Saliba or Gabriel out of the team if he had stayed, so fair play to him for making it to the Premier League the long way round.
With Paraguay international Omar Alderete unavailable due to a lingering concussion, Ballard will likely be partnered with Lutsharel Geertruida, a Netherlands international on loan from Leipzig, and Nordi Mukiele, a one-cap France international. Both can operate as right-backs if Le Bris prefers a traditional back four.
A mis-healed wrist injury has denied last season’s regular left back, Dennis Cirkin, even a single Premier League minute and his understudy, Nottingham-born Norway U-21 defender, Leo Hjelde, has banjaxed his Achilles tendon. Reinildo Mandava, a long-standing fixture in the Mozambique national team, is likely to fill in at left-back/left wing-back. Trai Hume, the young Northern Ireland international, can fill the same roles on the right-hand side.
Twenty-year-old Noah Sadiki, a summer signing from Belgian champions Union Saint-Gilloise, and Xhaka will form the double pivot that is the side’s wellspring. A key part of the Brussels-born DR Congo international’s role is to ensure Xhaka, 13 years his senior, has the time and space he needs to orchestrate Sunderland’s play. I expect to see Timber and Calafiori spending a lot of time inverted in midfield to pen the pair back.
It is worth noting that Sadiki is one away from a five-yellows suspension. Xhaka has clearly mellowed in his old age: he has picked up only three yellows so far.
Le Bris began the season playing Xhaka and Sadiki in a midfield trio with Habib Diara, a highly regarded young Senegal international who arrived from Racing Strasbourg in the summer for €31.5 million, intended to let Le Bris play the same sort of 4-3-3 that Arteta does. However, Diara hasn’t played since Matchweek 4 because of a groin injury.
Bertrand Traoré is the likely starter on the right wing. ‘Holics may remember the Burkina Faso international from his time at Chelsea and Villa. He arrived on Wearside late in the transfer window from Ajax. The in-form Enzo Le Fée, who like his manager, is from Brittany, is the probable starter on the other flank. Sunderland paid Roma €23 million to turn his loan last January into a permanent deal. Le Fée was a member of France’s team that competed at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Le Bris has another promising 20-year-old Belgian-born African at his disposal, Chemsdine Talbi. Comfortable on either wing. Talbi switched his allegiance from his country of birth to Morocco, the country of his descent, this year. He has been rewarded with 13 minutes of World Cup qualifying game time. He arrived in the summer from Club Brugge, where he won a league title and a domestic cup, for €20 million.
Up front, Le Bris has been starting another of his Breton imports, Wilson Isidor. Now 25, Isidor played for France’s youth teams but never progressed beyond the U-20s. He joined Sunderland on loan from Zenit St Petersburg the summer before last, with the loan becoming permanent last February for the modest fee of €6 million. He is the leading goalscorer this term with four. No one else has more than one.
Dutch international Brian Brobbey, who scored 56 goals in 163 matches for Ajax, was intended to address the goals shortage. An early-season ankle injury has meant he has yet to start a game. This leaves Sunderland relying on corners or long throws by Xhaka, Mukiele and Le Fée for goals.
As well as the injured already mentioned, winger Romaine Mundle and centre-back Aji Alese, both squad players, are unavailable.
The Arsenal
Our own injury list remains long. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter, but for Saturday, Viktor Gyökeres, Kai Havertz, Jesús, Noni Madueke, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Ødegaard are still in Matron’s hands (Matron!). Kepa Arrizabalaga is 50/50. Arteta avoided mentioning Martin Zubimendi in his pre-match press conference, but the Spaniard might be in doubt, having got a knock last weekend.
I can’t see Arteta starting anything but his strongest available team. Thus:
Raya
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori
Rice, Zubimendi, Eze
Saka, Merino, Trossard
This looks set to be a close and tactical game. Le Bris has rebuilt a Championship side with athletic, physical but technically gifted players fit for the Premier League and his style of play. He has also quickly got it to gel. At the other end of the pitch, they are skilled and inventive high-pressers. No team has salvaged more points from losing positions this season than Sunderland. The mood in the Stadium of Light is that they can get something out of this game.
For our part, neutralising Xhaka’s playmaking and keeping Sadiki diverted from his supporting duties will be key. In the end, it might come down to us having better players, with one of them producing the piece of magic that will make the difference, and ensure we meet the paramount objective of coming home with all three points.
1-0 to the Arsenal to extend our winning streak on the road to seven games in all competitions and to stretch the time since Raya last had to pick the ball out of his net beyond 13 hours.
Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far.
