Sunderland have a plan to fix their second-season syndrome ...Middle East

This should be one of Sunderland’s greatest away days in a generation, but a nagging doubt will accompany the Black Cats on their trip to Portugal on Wednesday.

Sunderland fly into Lisbon for their first European game on foreign soil in 50 years in an unusual position.

They have genuine ambitions of going deep in the Europa League, but there are already signs of second-season syndrome about a domestic campaign that has begun with one win in six games.

The defeat by Brighton was the first of a run of nine games in 29 days, the sort of fixture list the club have never had to contend with before.

If qualifying for the Europa League was a historic achievement, what followed was never going to be straightforward.

Bounce back required

Performances and results, including a magical night on Wearside against AZ Alkmaar, have been “about what we expected, to be honest”, according to one insider.

Whatever the flaws of the Brighton defeat, it promises to be some week for Sunderland supporters.

They snapped up all 4,000 tickets allocated to them, with many thousands more making the journey to Leiria, a city in central Portugal roughly two hours from both Porto and Lisbon.

In some ways, it is a slightly underwhelming first destination for Sunderland, who face a second-tier Portuguese side with an average attendance of fewer than 1,500.

Torreense pulled off one of the biggest shocks in European football history by winning the Portuguese Cup last season, but the club’s modest stature means their home Europa League matches have had to be moved from the tiny Estadio Manuel Marques.

Sunderland had hoped the game would be played in the Algarve, prompting a huge exodus of Black Cats supporters, but Uefa confounded expectations by selecting Leiria as the venue.

The decision has added cost and inconvenience for many fans.

With away trips to Poznan, Brussels and Milan before December, some are prioritising other destinations.

Even Sunderland have opted against training in Leiria before the game, securing Uefa dispensation to conduct their pre-match media duties in Lisbon shortly after arriving on Wednesday evening.

Mitigating factors

Still, this is a chance for Regis Le Bris and the Black Cats to lay down a marker and calm some of the jitters among their supporters.

That edginess is not shared in the boardroom.

Owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has been ruthless with managers in the past, pulling the trigger on Tony Mowbray just months after he led Sunderland to the Championship play-offs with some wonderful attacking football.

But there is no prospect of an overreaction to a fairly ordinary start to the season.

“No panic” is the message coming from the Sunderland boardroom, and there are several reasons for that. For starters, their fixture list has been treacherous. They have faced all four of the Premier League’s current top four and deserved more than the one point they have collected from a possible 12.

There were fine margins against Arsenal and Brentford, while Sunderland more than matched Manchester City for long periods at the Etihad Stadium. The data metrics the club use to track their progress suggest, according to insiders, that the team are actually improving on last season.

There is a certain irony in Sunderland turning to the expected goals (xG) table, which consistently suggested they were overperforming last season, but it puts their early struggles into context.

Faith in Le Bris

There is also still huge support for Le Bris, whose excellent work on Wearside has been recognised nationally.

“Regis Le Bris has more credit in the bank than any manager in the Premier League barring maybe Mikel Arteta,” a Sunderland insider tells The i Paper. “He is absolutely backed and supported.”

There is a school of thought within the club that Sunderland are better as underdogs, but they want to “think and act” like a top flight club capable of challenging for honours in the not-too-distant future.

Squaring that circle is part of the challenge this season.

Several key off-field appointments have been confirmed, the latest being Australian Luke Matthews joining as commercial director.

They come alongside a more prominent role for Louis-Dreyfus following the abrupt departure of Tom Burwell, the club’s acting chief executive.

Departments were told it was “business as usual” after Burwell’s exit and, to be fair, the owner has always been a hands-on figure.

Burwell’s sudden departure came as a surprise, but the failure to secure a multi-million-pound front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with Visit Ghana was a blow for a club that needs to maximise commercial revenue in a season when new squad cost ratio limits will apply.

More from Mark Douglas

The i Paper understands another company is in advanced negotiations to replace Visit Ghana at a similar valuation, with hopes that the deal can be signed off imminently.

What Sunderland need in the short term is success on the pitch, with Torreense followed by a Premier League trip to fellow slow starters Bournemouth on Sunday. It feels like a big week.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy, but the club wanted this,” a source says. “We’re making history and we should embrace that.” 

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