Sunderland Head Coach Régis Le Bris has made clear that he is only focused on his game plan ahead of the emotion of a promotion clash against Leeds United. Daniel Wales reports.
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00:00Sunderland have experienced a season that will have exceeded the expectations of most
00:06supporters so far, especially given how the previous campaign ended. With the final stretch
00:11approaching, they remain firmly in the hunt for automatic promotion from the Championship,
00:16but know that some huge hurdles still remain in their way.
00:22One of the biggest will come on Monday evening as they take on Leeds United at Elland Road.
00:27Leeds have been almost flawless in the Championship since the turn of the year, and sit at the
00:31top of the table, and do not look like taking their foot off the gas at any point soon,
00:36giving this game extra significance in such a tight race.
00:41With so much riding on the game, Regis Lebris is trying to focus only on the game plan and
00:46not the emotions surrounding it.
00:48Probably when we are focused just on the game, we can leave the emotions around the pitch
00:56because it's the best way to stay focused, the way we want to play, the key points of
01:05this game. I think it's easy to define the big picture of that game because we know their
01:13strength, they are very impressive at home, they can be very vertical with pace, using
01:25spaces, so we know how to manage their main strength and at the same time we have our
01:35way of playing and I think we can create danger. So the only focus will be on the game and
01:42after that I think the players enjoy playing this kind of fixture.
01:48The atmosphere at Ellenrode will be intimidating under the lights on Monday evening, and when
01:53faced with something similar against Middlesbrough recently, Sunderland found the start of the
01:58game difficult to cope with and went behind early on. But do they have a plan to cope this time?
02:04It was an interesting experience because I think our first half wasn't so good and we
02:12were focused on the tactics but probably we had a little bit of lack of intensity and
02:18passion maybe and I think these games require this passion, this extra energy because it's
02:26not about just thinking, it's about executing and giving this extra energy to make the difference
02:34so it should be useful for this game, I agree.
02:38However, when asked on whether Sunderland will have their moments and time to showcase
02:43their own quality in such an important game against Leeds, Lebris was short but adamant
02:49with his answer.
02:50Yeah, I think so, yeah, sure.