The Black Cats dominated the opening exchanges but missed a first-half penalty, and after two red cards shortly before the break, the two teams played out an open second half. Sunderland had chances to go ahead but conceded in the final ten minutes as substitute Tom Davies scored.
Le Bris said he was pleased with the performance but admitted that something will have to change in the final third after his side again struggled to turn their good play into goals.
“It’s a real mixture of emotions,” Le Bris said.
“I think we did well. We played the game we wanted to play, really. It’s clear that we had to manage the opposition because they wanted to play through us, then after ten minutes or so, the problem was solved, and progressively we got better and better. Then finally, we dominated the game.
We created some chances, but at the moment, the problem we have is that we can be dominant, but we don’t kill the game off when it is possible to do so. It was possible to do that this evening because we were dominant, but at the end, we were really frustrated, and I was really frustrated by the score and the outcome of the game. The reality is that we have ended the evening with zero points. We got five points from the five games before with the same dynamic, but here we have not taken anything, and that is really frustrating.
“It’s very difficult to judge on the pitch. It was one red card for one team and one for the other. It’s 1-1, I suppose, and it was another experience for us, having to play ten against ten. I thought we managed the situation properly.
“I thought Tommy was very good, but I don’t really want to extract one player or another because it is a question of the team. Team spirit and team togetherness. I think we can be very happy with some individual performances and some different phases in which we were dominant, but we are here to win and we didn’t. It was possible because we dominated a strong team, but obviously we are young and we need experience.
When it is possible after a game like that, you have to win, but that wasn’t the case. We have to change that and evolve in a different way to find solutions. With so much quality on the pitch, we have to find another outcome or another way of enabling us to improve our output in the game.”
