Régis Le Bris delivers verdict on Sunderland performance and refereeing controversy in Preston draw

Régis Le Bris admitted that the bizarre pause in the second half at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday night helped his Sunderland team rescue a point against Preston North End.

The Black Cats were trailing 1-0 after Emil Riis’s superb goal when the game was stopped initially for a Preston head injury. The player quickly got back to his feet, but another Preston player then went down with an injury. He was substituted off, only for another Preston player to go down injured. There was then a long pause as Preston readied their next substitution, and another as the officials realised the visitors now had twelve players on the pitch.

It was only the intervention of the Sunderland coaching staff that alerted the officials to the extra player, but a fired up home side equalised within moments of the restart. Le Bris admitted his side had struggled for control in the opening hour on an ultimately frustrating night.

Le Bris said: "It was a strange situation, a first time for me! It's difficult to play against 12! But finally it helped us to react I think. After this situation we reacted well with a high level of energy, and we finished the game with a good dynamic.

"I think we started OK with a 4-4-2 so a little bit different than usual. We needed some adjustments to find the right dynamic. Sometimes it worked well and we should have scored with some big chances, even if the overall control of the game wasn't so perfect. We had four or five chances to score and in this kind of game, against an opponent this type of game, it's very important to score because we can kill the game rather than keeping them alive. At the same time, we should have had a better control of the game.

"We struggled a little bit with their direct play, it's not easy to press and you can feel that they will play long,” he said.

“Our block was sometimes a little bit open and we had to manage this. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't and they were able to keep the ball close to our box and create chances from nothing, just from direct play.

"So at the end of the day, it was a good reaction. It was a brilliant goal from Romaine. He needed minutes to recover his best sharpness and his goal was absolutely brilliant. Hopefully he can go on to score some more. It's one more point in the race. This league is long with different set ups, different experiences, and for now we just have to keep going."

Régis Le Bris delivers verdict on Sunderland formation switch

Le Bris’s decision to switch to a 4-4-2 didn’t really work on the night, with Sunderland more fluid when Chris Rigg came onto the pitch. The Sunderland head coach says it can still be an effective option to play Wilson Isidor and Eliezer Mayenda together.

"With these two strikers you have pace and the ability to score,” he said.

“With this formation, it's still important to keep at least one of the two strikers a little bit deeper to help the midfield and create gaps in the opposition defence. Because it was new, sometimes it worked at the beginning of the game but with time, maybe with the flow of the game, it wasn't easy to maintain it. With a real midfielder like Riggy is, it was more natural."

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