'Exhausted': Régis Le Bris delivers brutally honest Sunderland verdict after Coventry City defeat

Régis Le Bris admitted his Sunderland players looked 'exhausted' in a brutally honest verdict on their defeat to Coventry City.

Sunderland fell to their heaviest defeat of the season thanks to a hat-trick from Haji Wright, with the Black Cats threatening only briefly in the second half in a poor performance.

Le Bris admits that the defeat to Leeds United and its impact on Sunderland's automatic promotion hopes looks to have impacted the squad psychologically, while fatigue is clearly a growing concern 38 games into the campaign.

"I think only at Preston [have we been outplayed like this], but we didn't concede much on that occasion," Le Bris said.

"It wasn't the best version of Sunderland this afternoon. To be fair, Coventry were good. They played good football, they were incisive and intense. We were not able to maintain the level to defend properly. Even if our shape was OK, our intensity in duels and second balls were far from the level expected. With the ball we were sloppy, we couldn't keep it against their pressure. It was a bad game.

"It's hard at the moment to find just one reason to explain the whole the behaviour of the team, so I will have to analyse this," Le Bris added.

"I think after the Leeds game our dynamic was broken a little it, probably our way thinking about automatic promotion. We played well but didn't get any points. After the Hull game we had a good reaction with two wins and a draw, but today we looked exhausted on the pitch. We didn't look like we had the energy to be competitive."

Régis Le Bris explains why he didn't make any Sunderland substitutions at half time

Le Bris admitted he could have changed the entire side at half time but expected a reaction from his players. The Sunderland head coach did quickly make changes in the second half but admitted that it didn't change the flow of the game.

"We made changes after ten minutes in the second half," Le Bris said.

"After the first half, we could have changed nine or ten players. We expected a reaction but it wasn't really the case, we created a couple of chances but it wasn't really a team reaction - it was more about one or two individual moments. After that we tried different options but it was a collective failure today."

Your next Sunderland read: I just watched Sunderland's worst performance of the season - here's why it was so worrying