Sunderland Head Coach Régis Le Bris has spoken of his desire for his to gain experience from a potential cup run, in order to help them in their bid for promotion from the Championship. Daniel Wales reports.
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00:00As two-time winners of the FA Cup, Sunderland have a rich history in the competition, with memories of 1973 in particular fresh in the minds of many supporters.
00:10The visit of Stoke City to Wearside in this season's third round presents a good opportunity to reach round four and compete on two fronts going forward.
00:19The Blackcats fell at the first hurdle in the Carabao Cup at the start of the season, but since then have massively progressed as a team under Radice Lebris,
00:27and are pushing for promotion from the Championship to the Premier League, meaning there is hope that the FA Cup will yield better results.
00:36Lebris was keen to outline the differences between the Sunderland side that bowed out of the Carabao Cup at Preston to the side about to enter the FA Cup against Stoke this weekend.
00:52I think it was a different moment of the season because it was still the beginning and I wanted to assist all the players.
01:02So it was very useful, a competitive game, an official game, because it's still a friendly game, you can win, you can lose, it doesn't matter.
01:11Here it was really clear that we wanted to win, but it was difficult because Preston was a good team.
01:18And now it's different because we are not at the same stage and I know the players and we have a specific purpose and it's a different moment.
01:31So I think I'll manage the situation differently.
01:35Whether Sunderland have a deep enough squad to maintain their position near to the top of the Championship and continue to progress in the FA Cup was something that Lebris has been considering.
01:49The competition is very high so probably we'll have a good competition against Stoke tomorrow and Saturday.
02:00But after you can face with a Premier League club so it's more a challenge than something we can...
02:08We know that the competition will be so high that it's difficult to go until the end.
02:13But for the players I think if we can face with different challenges you can feed their experience and after it's like a dream to go further, but we'll see.
02:24And on the subject of squad depth, the potential addition of Roma's Enzo Leffy will help with that, as well as showing that Sunderland are planning for a potential promotion.
02:36The first idea is to be focused on the Championship and the end of the Championship.
02:43After, if it's possible to find a player with this ability to be competitive in the Premier League, it's better.
02:53But the main focus is really the next four months.