You can learn a lot about the way a team comes out at the start of the second-half, and the difference between Graham Potter’s West Ham United and Regis Le Bris’ Sunderland could hardly have been more stark at the Stadium of Light.
It matters little now, of course, but the visitors actually played fairly well for the opening 45 minutes on Wearside.
While Mads Hermansen had to be alert to push aside an early Habib Diarra effort, West Ham United looked the most likely to break the deadlock before referee Rob Jones brought the opening stanza to a close on Saturday afternoon.
In fact, if not for a brilliant Dan Ballard challenge, El Hadji Malick Diouf would have marked his Premier League bow with a well-taken finish from his trusty left boot.
Any momentum Graham Potter’s team were building before the interval, however, had disappeared by the time the two teams re-emerged.
West Ham were dreadful and Sunderland clinical during a second-half in which only one team looked likely to be embroiled in a relegation dogfight.
Graham Potter’s backline went missing as Eliezer Mayenda and Dan Ballard scored two headers in the space of just 12 minutes, while Mads Hermansen marked his Hammers debut with a ‘big mistake’ – to quote Sky Sports pundit Clinton Morrison – as Wilson Isidor’s late curler left the new goalkeeper grasping at thin air.
Coach Regis Le Bris and his new Black Cats skipper Granit Xhaka, meanwhile, kept their post-match reflections brief but clear.
Regis Le Bris and Granit Xhaka reflect as Sunderland hammer West Ham United
Le Bris, speaking to Sunderland’s official in-house media, felt that this was a victory borne out of the basics.
Team spirit, togetherness, solid defending, and a side inspired by a boisterous home support determined to make the very most of their first Premier League win since the ill-fated David Moyes era in 2017.
“Granit [Xhaka] said at the end of the game, in the dressing room, two or three words,” Le Bris explains in his typically soft-spoken style. “He talked especially about this togetherness, how we can suffer together on the pitch.
“We have to defend maybe a bit deeper with eleven players, and we did [that] well today. When we had the opportunity to counter-attack, we used this to score.”
While some West Ham supporters have taken issue with Graham Potter’s team selection and his tactics – is that 3-5-2 formation really the right one? – Sunderland did the simple things but did them excellently.
The Hammers dominated possession – 64 per cent of it, to be precise – but only really tested goalkeeper Robin Roefs late on through substitute Callum Wilson.
A clean sheet on his debut, Roefs was linked with West Ham briefly before the £18 million arrival of Hermansen.
Le Bris hails Sunderland fans at raucous Stadium of Light
Le Bris, meanwhile, was particularly pleased by the way his Sunderland side soaked up West Ham’s pressure late in the first-half before gobbling up those chances in the second.
“I think it’s always like that in the Premier League. You can expect to suffer because we are playing some of the strongest teams in the world,” Le Bris adds, even if West Ham looked anything but.
“Especially at the beginning of the season, when we are not really adjusted, we need time to find the right flow [as demonstrated] in the first-half.
And, in the second-half, we felt it was possible to step up a bit. The confidence was higher as well
“[The support] was really impressive today, again. Our fans will be key for the season because we will go through difficult moments, for sure, and we will need this support. We felt from the beginning here that we had twelve [men] on the pitch.”
