MusaPremier League success is not about playing the most beautiful football. It is about survival – and sometimes that means winning badly.
Southampton have forgotten that. Under the idealist Russell Martin, they stuck to their style and tried too hard to play from the back. But in a league where mistakes are punished and moments are more important than patterns, that dedication to aesthetics has proven fatal. Martin was sacked in December with the Saints already sprouting, leaving his replacement Ivan Juric with an impossible task.
Sunderland, by contrast, enter the top flight after an eight-season absence with what seems like a very different kind of manager. Régis Le Bris may be known for his youthful development and tactical intelligence, but he was no purist. Under Sunderland he has shown pragmatism at every turn and that could be the difference in what promises to be a brutal survival game.
What has defined Sunderland’s marketing campaign has not been a set system or ideology. It has been adaptability. Le Bris used multiple formations – often switching between 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 – and was not afraid to adjust his formation, shuffle his personnel or sacrifice possession to get results. He knew when to sit deep and frustrate, when to press high and suffocate. It wasn’t about playing pretty – it was about winning.
That flexibility will be key. Every newly promoted side has games where they are outplayed. Southampton tried to overcome that pressure and fell apart. Sunderland under Le Bris showed they are ready to fight, press, sit deep or cut back – whatever the moment demands.
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That mindset is filtering through. Players like Dan Neil and Eliezer Mayenda have developed into different, often unfamiliar roles over the last season. Such versatility doesn’t happen by accident – it comes from a manager who sees football in shades of grey, not dogmatically black and white.
Of course, there is still a risk. The Premier League has a way of seducing clubs into forgetting what made them successful. Bigger stadiums, bigger budgets, bigger egos – they can all be focused on the cloud. But given what we’ve seen so far, we’d back the humble and modest Le Bris to stay grounded. In this league, it’s far more important to be hard to beat, tactically sharp and emotionally resilient than to play from behind in front of the cameras. Southampton learned that too late. Sunderland would be wise to learn it now.
Le Bris understands the realities of top-flight football – his time at Lorient proved it. He impressed at the start of Ligue 1, then was relegated. But by sticking to what worked on Wearside – even if it wasn’t always pretty – Sunderland will give themselves the best possible chance of staying afloat. Right now, style can wait. Survival is everything.
Musa
